Purple Cup golf tournament celebrates skill, inclusion among visually impaired, autistic players
BENGALURU: A one-of-its-kind golf tournament for people with visual impairments and those on the autism spectrum was held at the Karnataka Golf Association (KGA) on Thursday. At the fifth season of The Purple Cup, both seasoned and amateur golfers with disabilities competed against each other, accompanied by people with disabilities who tried their hand at the sport for the first time.
At this year’s tournament, 104 golfers participated, including four with vision impairments and one with autism. There was also a “gold clinic” which taught 14 visually impaired individuals the proper technique of hitting a golf ball.
Started by Dipesh Sutariya, Co-founder of EnAble India, in 2021, the tournament was initially just meant for golfers with visual disability, but those with autism have been brought into the fold as well since last year (2024). “The idea for a tournament like this came to me around 20 years ago. I wanted golf to be the way to destigmatise disability. This is not a charity tournament for them; it is to show that if blind or partially blind people can play golf, they can do anything, and can be employed anywhere,” Sutariya said.
Thumbe Sundeep Rao has been a familiar face at the tournament. Used to playing golf as a teenager, Rao had to drop the sport as his vision gradually worsened to a point where he could not see the ball. “The Purple Cup has allowed me to have with myself the dialogue necessary to get back out there. I have gradually had to adapt; I don’t have the troubled ‘Oh, I can’t see the ball anymore’ reaction anymore,” he said. Ernst Conradie from South Africa, the first international participant, is a retired blind cricketer from South Africa who took to golf in 2014. “You have to have a good partnership with your guide. Unlike cricket, there are not ten other guys to bail you out; so that trust is very important,” he said.
Fresh off the heels of winning the Special Olympics Bharat in the under-14 category, 13-year-old Nandan S from Bengaluru was one of this year’s standout performers. The young national champion’s mother Harsha Ranjani explained that while in her opinion her son is better at badminton, he has taken to golf unlike anything else. “He is very physically active. I don’t know why he chose golf – which is not exactly easy on the pocket – but this sport has helped him tremendously,” she explained. Nandan won in the 19–24 Gents category at The Purple Cup.