By Vipul Kashyap
New Delhi [India], June 8 (ANI): India’s former World Cup-winning cricketer and present Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) president Kapil Dev spoke on the number of the Indian squad for the upcoming Asian Games in Japan, highlighting how the benefit earned via factors and rankings performs an even bigger function than selectors and their needs.
Olympians Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar will lead India’s golf contingent on the Asian Games 2026, set to be held in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, as per Olympics.com on Sunday. The six-member squad includes three males and three girls, with picks made based mostly on world rankings.
Speaking to ANI, Kapil mentioned about golf and workforce choice for the Asian Games that a number of work must be finished regardless of the game witnessing some superb progress during the last two or three years.
‘Golf has grown loads within the final two-three years. But I nonetheless must work laborious on it. When our boys play within the Olympics, they’re pleased. The neatest thing is that the workforce picks are based mostly on the rating,’ he mentioned to ANI.
‘How many factors did they earn in a 12 months? It’s not just like the selector picks one or the opposite. There isn’t any interference. It’s simply concerning the factors. The workforce routinely selects one of the best factors,’ he added.
He additionally identified that golfers play golf for 30-35 weeks yearly and have a schedule much like cricket.
‘They have a number of excursions. They play tournaments throughout India. We are speaking about medals. There are Asian Games and the Olympics. There are preparations for that,’ he added.
The golf occasions on the Asian Games 2026 might be contested from September 30 to October 3 on the Kasugai Country Club East Course, that includes 4 medal occasions: males’s and ladies’s particular person and workforce competitions.
Aditi Ashok, a five-time Ladies European Tour (LET) winner and three-time Olympian, narrowly missed a podium end at Tokyo 2020, ending fourth. She additionally secured India’s first-ever girls’s golf medal on the Asian Games with a silver at Hangzhou 2023.
Diksha Dagar, a two-time Olympian and Deaflympics champion, returns to the continental stage after ending twenty second at Jakarta 2018 and boasts two LET titles. Pranavi Urs represented India on the final Asian Games, ending thirteenth within the girls’s subject. Yuvraj Sandhu enters the match on the again of a dominant 2025 season on the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), claiming a report seven titles.
India has a complete of seven golf medals on the Asian Games, together with three gold and 4 silver. The nation’s first gold medals got here on the 1982 New Delhi Games, with Lakshman Singh profitable the boys’s particular person crown and the workforce securing gold. Shiv Kapur added particular person gold at Busan 2002, whereas the boys’s groups completed with silver at Doha 2006 and Guangzhou 2010. Aditi Ashok claimed the newest medal at Hangzhou 2023.
Asian Games 2026: India golf squad Men: Yuvraj Sandhu, Veer Ahlawat, Saptak Talwar. Women: Aditi Ashok, Diksha Dagar, Pranavi Urs. (ANI)