Talk, former players urge both sides in Rashid-DGC impasse

By Rahul Banerji

With neither side showing any signs of backing down, the standoff between professional golfer Rashid Khan and the Delhi Golf Club is quickly going nowhere. And this has seniors in the fraternity worried.

Flash update: There has been a breakthrough with 1982 Asian Games gold medallist and DGC committee member Amit Luthra meeting the concerned players. He will take their demands to the committee when they are handed over.

Whatever is happening, they feel, is doing no good to either the game or the institution. The DGC has been a nursery to some fine talent especially in the early years of professional golf in the country, and many veterans are worried about that pipeline being choked off.

“Just look at the sort of players that have come out of the DGC,” three-time World Cupper and Alfred Dunhill Championship participant turned golf entrepreneur Brandon de Souza said on Tuesday.

“Rohtas (Singh), Ali (Sher, two-time Indian Open champion) were amongst the early ones and Rashid himself has been a beneficiary of the club’s schemes,” he pointed out.

“This needs to be sorted out as quickly as possible. It is doing the game no good at all.”

‘Need to broker a solution’

“The need of the hour is a proper meeting where the dos and don’ts of the club are discussed and a call taken as rights of admission to any club are reserved. Amit Luthra and other younger committee members should be asked to broker a solution,” de Souza added.

Luthra has been seeking to reach out to Rashid, but with little luck so far. Almost as soon as the fracas erupted he messaged Rashid, saying, “Unfortunate what has happened. Ashok has been calling me. If you want I can try and meet you and try and diffuse (sic) the situation. Important as this will affect the future of other amateurs as well.”

Luthra runs The Golf Foundation that trains and mentors young talent, especially from less privileged backgrounds, and Rashid Khan was an early member of the programme. He has also tweeted about the matter in response to Rashid’s own Twitter comments (see below).

Tough stance

For its part, the club and its president, Maj. R.S. Bedi, have been under some stress as well and on Monday, he put out a notice that said, amongst other things, “These are pressure tactics by Rashid Khan and few others who have recently been banned from the Delhi Golf Club through a General Committee Resolution for:

a) Bringing the DGC to disrepute through Press Conferences.

b) Going to Court against the DGC.

c) Indiscipline, rowdy behaviour (including physical assault on DGC Security Staff).

“There have been multiple instances of (c) above- reports on which have all been submitted to the Tughlaq Road Police Station in whose area of responsibility the DGC falls.”

Tuesday’s newspapers also reported that members of the club has received “death threats” from unknown people which perhaps inadvertently brought along a faint ray of hope.

Crack in the ice?

Tweeted Rashid Khan in reply to the reports, “Sir These death threats which you have received can we also have a copy of that or phone records who called you or any Delhi golf club member , that will be great and people will know the truth , cuz I have given 15 complaints including this 3 months back.”\

This is perhaps the first time there has been a response from the player concerned and while he has also received support from senior professionals like Shamim Khan and Mukesh Kumar, clearly there has been some back-channel communication.

If both parties can indeed sit down together, particularly younger members of the DGC’s executive as de Souza has suggested, there may yet be a way out of a mess that is doing no one concerned any credit whatsoever.

Also read: Rashid Khan takes round one lead at Players Championship