By the time you read this, another Independence Day will have come and gone. I hope you all had a wonderful August 15 with family, friends and, if you were lucky, a round of golf thrown in. One of the things I love most about our game is how it brings together people from every walk of life. For four or five hours, we’re all equal—CEOs, students, professionals, weekend hackers—all chasing the same little white ball and, more often than not, the same Nearest-to-the-Pin prize! That’s the beauty of golf. It teaches respect, camaraderie and healthy competition, values that make sport such a powerful unifier.
I’ve travelled the world playing golf. Apart from the domestic tour events, I’ve played the DP World Tour events, Asian Tour events and enough pro-ams to last a lifetime. And after all these years, I’ve reached one undeniable conclusion. The fiercest competition in golf isn’t for a Major. It isn’t for a Rolex. It isn’t even for the Ryder Cup. It’s for the Nearest-to-the-Pin prize sponsored by the local perfume shop.
Nothing—and I mean absolutely nothing—transforms otherwise sensible golfers into raging competitors faster than a volunteer announcing, “Current leader… 8 feet, 11 inches.” The prize could be a tiny bottle of cologne, a coffee mug, a keychain, a toaster, or a dinner voucher that expires before you’ve even digested the starter. It doesn’t matter. Someone is prepared to risk a shoulder injury trying to win it.
Corporate golf days are my favourite. For the first 14 holes, nobody seems remotely interested in the golf. The CEO is answering calls, the CFO is discussing quarterly numbers, someone is asking whether the buffet has biryani, and another chap has already declared, “Boss, I’m just here for networking.” Then the group reaches the designated par-3. Phones disappear. Conversations stop. Suddenly everyone becomes Viktor Hovland.
The same bloke who has made four air-swings all day now asks everyone to maintain complete silence because he’s “visualising the shot.” Visualising? Mate… you’ve just made a 10 on the previous hole. The volunteer holding the clipboard instantly becomes the most important person on the golf course. “Who’s leading?” “Eight feet.” “No… mine’s closer.” “Measure it properly.” I’ve genuinely seen more heated discussions over Nearest-to-the-Pin than over relief from an embedded ball.
And once somebody knocks it close, he doesn’t enjoy the remaining holes. He spends them monitoring everyone else’s. Every few holes he’ll casually drift towards the scoring area pretending to stretch, only to check if anyone has bettered his effort. I’ve watched grown men who can’t remember their wedding anniversary recall, to the nearest inch, exactly where every Nearest-to-the-Pin marker stood throughout the afternoon.
Professionals aren’t any different. We just pretend we’re more sophisticated. One of the biggest myths in golf is that tour players don’t gamble during practice rounds. Absolute nonsense. If anything, Monday and Tuesday practice rounds can become more competitive than the tournament itself. Players regularly have money games because, as Vijay Singh famously believed, you prepare better when something is riding on the outcome. Phil Mickelson has never hidden his love for side bets either. One of his favourite lines has been, “If you can’t make a putt for a couple of hundred bucks, how are you going to make one for a million?”
I’ve been lucky enough to witness a few of these games. Nobody gives strokes. Nobody hands out compliments. It’s amazing how quickly friendships become… flexible. A relaxed Tuesday practice round suddenly feels like the final round of The Open because someone has put fifty dollars on closest-to-the-pin. I’ve seen players who couldn’t care less about a casual chipping contest spend five minutes discussing wind direction and landing areas with their caddie because lunch was riding on one swing. Miss the shot and your friends won’t sympathise. They’ll laugh, collect the money and remind you about it for the next six months.
One of the funniest sights on Tour is the player who insists he wasn’t really trying. He hits one to three feet, pockets the money and shrugs, “Ah… got lucky.” Really? Then why did you spend three minutes discussing the breeze before choosing between an eight and a nine iron? The acting deserves an Oscar.
Club golfers have their own version of this theatre. The shot gets better every time the story is retold. At the prize presentation it was five feet. Over dinner it becomes three. By the following weekend it “nearly went in.” A month later, someone hearing the story for the first time is convinced it actually was a hole-in-one. Golf memories improve much faster than handicaps.
One of the funniest things I ever saw happened at a club where two players couldn’t decide whose ball was actually closer for a tiny closest-to-the-pin wager. One gentleman calmly pulled out his laser rangefinder… on the green… to settle a bet worth less than the coffee they were about to drink. Apparently, dignity wasn’t included in the stakes.
Maybe organisers should stop spending money on expensive prizes. Forget luxury hampers, golf bags and fancy gadgets. Announce that the Nearest-to-the-Pin winner gets a steel tiffin box, a packet of pickle or a pressure cooker. I promise participation won’t drop by even one golfer. Because the prize has never really mattered.
It’s the story that matters. Golfers rarely remember what they scored in the corporate event, but they’ll vividly recall flushing a seven-iron to four feet on the 16th and walking away with a bottle of aftershave worth ₹799. I’ve seen players win tournaments with less emotion than someone collecting a coffee mug for Nearest-to-the-Pin. The photographs are taken, the chest swells with pride and, for one brief moment, they genuinely feel like Masters champions.
That’s the wonderful absurdity of golf. We can shoot 82, lose three balls, miss half the fairways and four-putt twice, yet drive home delighted because one swing was perfect. Maybe that’s why we keep coming back. Every golfer dreams of shooting par. But secretly, we’re all just hoping to hear those magical words at the prize distribution:
“And the Nearest-to-the-Pin winner is…”
Rahil Gangjee is a professional golfer, sharing through this column what life on a golf course is like