GolfPlus - Nov 19 Digital Edition (Nov 19) | Page 42

Feature
GUESS HOW I WATCHED
THIS YEAR!
By Rahul Sood
2019 Champion - Shane Lowry
atching Britain’s The Open
tourney Live every year is on
every golfer’s Bucket List.
Since The Open is considered
by many to be the most
prestigious of all the four Majors. A tourney
where the pros take the greatest pains to plan
and prepare. And this special appeal is even
more so for golfers in India, since the event’s
live telecast is seen in India in the evening,
which is so convenient.
Now, if one was fortunate enough to have
played a round on the very same course where
The Open is due to be played, you would
surely be even more keen to watch it Live. To
relive your experience.
This July The Open was played at Northern
Ireland’s iconic links course, Royal Portrush
GC, an hour out of Belfast. The tourney had
come to Rory McIlroy’s part of the world after
a gap of some 65 years! You can imagine how
keen Northern Ireland would be to cash in on
this windfall and get the maximum publicity
and promotional benefi ts from it.
Two months earlier, in the month of May,
my wife Harinakshi and I got to visit Belfast.
Courtesy their Tourist Board, the Andras
Hotel group (Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza),
and ferry service Stena Line (see my piece on
this visit in the June, 2019 issue of Golf Plus
Monthly). What a glorious and memorable trip
it was! Perfect weather. Great hospitality. And
complimentary rounds of golf at some of the
best courses in the area. Including a memorable
10 over par round at Royal Portrush itself! Yes,
46 G o l f P l u s
NOVEMBER
I was fortunate enough to play on the very
course The Open was to be played on.
Soon after we returned to India I was
diagnosed with a medical condition that
required immediate surgery. So, in short order,
we found the perfect surgeon to do the job,
planned the surgery in one of Mumbai’s best
hospitals, and got the job done. Happily, it was
a runaway success. But required some days
post-op for me to be kept in the hospital’s ICU
to rest and recover.
Unfortunately, my time in the ICU
coincided with when The Open was being
played at Royal Portrush. You understand how
badly I must have wanted to watch it Live. Not
just to relive my experience playing a familiar
course. But also to see how Rory fared on a
course in his back yard. And how the other
pros tackled some of the same turf and roughs
I had contended with not long ago.
But all hospital ICUs have their rules:
No visitors. No outside food. No TV. No
electronic gadgets. Rules that are in place so as
to prevent the vulnerable patient from getting
an infection. I had appealed many times to my
doctors that I be allowed to watch The Open as
it was being televised. But each time I got the
same reply, ‘Sorry, Rules are Rules’.
That’s when my Dear wife Harinakshi
stepped in. Bless her soul. She intimately
knew my passion for golf. Not just playing
at my home clubs in Mumbai. But travelling
the world so that I could play (and write
about) golf. We had gone to Northern Ireland
together, and she had even walked 9 holes at
2019
Royal Portrush with me. She had heard my
very last words as I was being trundled into the
Operating Theatre, “How will I get to watch
The Open?” She clearly realized how keen I
was to get to do this!
In the process of getting my medication
tweaked each day, Harinakshi had gotten
to know the ICU-in-charge doc rather well.
Her serious concern for my health and recovery
made the doc develop a healthy respect
for her. So, when she spoke to him about
my keen interest in the game of golf, he
heard her.
Then she reached out to my golf buddies
to fi gure how the The Open could best be
watched by me stuck in the ICU. That is, does
Tata Sky carry the feed? Is it better to use a
golf-related app such as Golf TV, PGA, or
Hotstar? How best to get a live stream of the
event? What electronic gadget should be used?
Then she went out and bought a brand
new I-Pad! Even before she had been given
any clearances to use it in the ICU. And
even though we already had an I-Pad. Why?
Because she believed that the new I-Pad would
more likely be perceived by the doc as being
clean and germ-free, and thus possibly ‘safe’
to be allowed into the ICU. Good thinking!
And then, on D-Day, when Day 1 of The
Open was to be telecast in the evening, she
made a fi nal plea to the doc, “I think if you
were to bend the rules a bit and allow Rahul to
watch The Open on our I-Pad it would be the
very best painkiller possible!”
You guessed it: Harinakshi’s indefatigable
efforts paid off! The doc melted. He agreed.
He passed the necessary instructions to
his head nurse. I was over the top with joy!
And watched as much of “The Open” as my
anesthesia, my medication, and my post-
surgery groggy condition allowed. Thank you,
thank you, thank you, Harinakshi!
And that’s how I got to relive playing
Royal Portrush and watch Ireland’s Shane
Lowry win The Open!