Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli's roadmap helped golfer Aadil Bedi
Young Aadil Bedi has played 13 PGTI tournaments in the last two years and Bengal Open is his maiden title.
Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli played a significant role in the rise of India’s golf prodigy Aadil Bedi, who has recently won the Bengal Open, his father Harry Bedi has revealed.
The 19-year-old’s talent was first spotted by the Virat Kohli Foundation (VKF) in 2017 when the Indian captain had asked Harry Bedi to make a list of tournaments that Aadil Bedi will be playing over the next three years.
"It was Virat's idea to make a roadmap for Aadil,” Harry Bedi told The Times of India. “It took long but we believed in the process and knew that we were in the right direction. I can't describe my happiness in words."
"Just buy a ticket, get Aadil into the plane, and don't worry about money,'" Harry Bedi remembers Virat Kohli telling him.
Aadil Bedi wins a thriller
Aadil Bedi’s Bengal Open title feat will be remembered for long because of the sheer manner in which he clinched it.
The Chandigarh-based lad finished his campaign with a chip-in birdie on the sixth playoff, which ended the experienced Udayan Mane’s three-match winning streak on the PGTI Tour.
The Rs 30 lakh-tournament saw the longest-running playoff on the Indian golf tour. The last event that went into the fourth play-off was the Jeev Milkha Singh Invitational 2019 where Ajeetesh Sandhu had edged past Rashid Khan in a thriller.
“I was pretty numb. I couldn't believe that I had won my first title, finally,” Aadil Bedi told TOI.
“It took 13 hours to sink in. I took this tournament as just another preparatory event for the upcoming Indian and Dhaka Opens, which were cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak."
A star in the making
Starting young, Aadil Bedi had won 175 of the 275 championships before he went on to become the youngest Indian golfer to secure the 2019 Asian Tour card. He had also represented India at the 2018 Asian Games.
Making his debut as a professional at the 2018 Panasonic Open in Bengaluru two years back, Aadil Bedi has since played 13 PGTI tournaments although he had failed to win any of them before last week.
After finishing among the top 5 in five championships last year Aadil Bedi has furthered his momentum at the Bengal Open that will now see his world ranking go up.
"It [world ranking] should be somewhere around 800... I am confident of having a more positive year after this start," Aadil Bedi concluded.