Rathan Kumar is a chartered accountant and a successful entrepreneur with over 27 years of business leadership experience with his last role being running a $1.4 billion digital multimedia products business worldwide for a multinational company. He relinquished business interests in his technology company through an acquisition. Thereafter, he took to golf and his sheer passion for the game and his vision to create a platform that would transform Golf Instruction and Infrastructure, inspired him to promote Touché Golf. Having won 18 amateur club & corporate tournament, he is now committed to taking technology and professional instruction in India and rest of the world, to its highest level.

What do you think about golfing in Bangalore

I think Bangalore is a great golfing city. One of those places where you can play golf for virtually 365 days in the year. We have also produced some golfing greats and are now in the processing of building promising youngsters.

Rathan Kumar
Managing Director,Peter Murphy Touche Golf Academy .

I also see Bangalore, and the South as a great golfing destination – widening the potential for inbound tourism of a high calibre. The relative costs of playing this side of the world are truly attractive.

Opening doors and breaking barriers looks formidable, doesn’t it?

Right now we are seeing a momentum shift in how the game is played. Earlier, the game was privy to only the club member circuit and their children. The iron curtain here needs to be softened and we need to break some barriers.

In a way it’s already happening. Today, anybody interested in the game can come over and sign-up at Touche Golf. You can either sign-up for coaching or book a time slot to play. This is what I meant by opening up golf tourism – people coming here can get to play at $ 12 during weekdays and $ 24 over weekends.

That’s very, very attractive, isn’t it?

Most youngsters at the school and college level don’t know that city clubs have a quota for student memberships. And this option is really attractive in terms of opportunities to learn, at membership fees specially worked out for students.

What about the Touche academy and how you’re taking this further?

Touche Golf has an academy here that’s now fully functional. We’re nearly one year old now at the BGC and everything is in place. So, anybody can come by and sign-up to enrol for personalised coaching. It helps to know here, that our instructors go through a training program themselves on a format designed by Peter Murphy, who heads the academy where Tiger Woods used to coach. We also have Vijay Divecha heading the academy and he is the only Class ‘A’ Teaching Professional based in South India. Vijay has 12 seasoned instructors under him, who currently train 160 kids in various batches. The coaching has become so popular that we now have a waiting list of 180 kids. Our new golf school in Kogalur will help us ease the load and open the doors to a growing number of aspirants on our waiting list.

What’s a good age to start…how early is early?

It’s very useful to start young, because the entire muscle structure and body rhythm needs to be oriented early in a certain way. We have youngsters coming in here who are as young as 5 - an entry level age between 5 and 8 is recommended.

While age is one consideration, I also believe that children need to be interested in golf and have the aptitude to learn. In some cases, parents are keener than their children, and that’s time and money wasted - because sooner or later the kids lose interest and drop out. On the other hand, if a youngster is really interested, he gains immensely from this system We have a youngster here who has been training with us barely 12 months now, and is already among the top four in the South.

What happens in the learning process – do they get to play tournaments?

Touche Golf holds a tournament every month for trainees. We also hold zonal level tournaments for the South for various participating clubs. Our tournaments give youngsters a nice opportunity to converge and play with a competitive spirit. After the zonal levels, players who qualify move up to the nationals. IGU is already doing this and doing it rather well. That’s how young amateurs come into playing circuits and make their way up the ladder.

What were the objectives behind the setting up of Touché?

Touché was set up to be among the best golf academies in the world. With an operating base from Bangalore, we hope to reach out to the rest of the country and share the learning experience in a very professional way.

BGC has also taken huge steps in making this possible and giving us the opportunity to set up Touche, within the club’s operating structure. For a fledging enterprise in this space, BGC has really given us the opportunity to hit the ground running.

When we started Touche, we brought in the credibility of three well-known golfers with strong, positive profiles in the industry. While Dr Rohit Shetty handles tournaments and events, Harish Shetty handles our ProShop and merchandizing. Though there are three of us at this core level, we constantly discuss our vision and growth path, to stay on course. But everything happens smoothly without a problem.

How long have you been playing golf?

I’ve been playing golf for four years now – started playing in 2006. I must say I have understood the nuances and really enjoy the game. Of course, I had the good fortune to get my early lessons from the Leadbetter Academy.

With golf, there’s something you learn every day and the learning process never stops. Like I said, I now play to enjoy the game. There’s nothing like coming to the course early in the morning to catch the dewdrops sparkling in the grass. Or take those first few breaths in wide open spaces.

What was the transition like from full time corporate,to full time Touché?

The transition was smooth and easy paced. I had reached a point in my work life where I had set up a successful business that was poised to go to the next level. A take-over was on the cards and I nurtured the transition till I could finally move out to do anything I wanted. Around this time, I found myself entering the hallowed portals of the BGC and stepping into a world that I really had to fathom. Over a period of time the entrepreneur in me looked at golf from a totally different angle – an academy and a golf course, with a robust IT infrastructure and management inputs.

In addition running the golf academy, organizing tournaments is another big activity for us, and we can do that for clubs, or corporates who want to organize a tournament. In addition to Bangalore, we can pretty much organize a tournament anywhere in the country. We have tie-ups in Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta to enable that and well established tournament structures and formats to do this.

Can you tell us some of your best moments on the course?

For me, there’s nothing like getting an eagle. It’s a great feeling when you watch that trajectory fly off smoothly in the intended direction and land just where you want it.

Some of my best moments on the course have also been the people I have met and played with. That’s where golf is also a great leveller – you don’t ask for favours and you don’t take any favours. You play level and make good friends. What more can you really ask for?

What are the tournaments that you recall that are special?

For me, most of the tournaments I played in are special. But what was a personal confidence builder, was winning 18 tournaments in two years. I have always wanted to play golf, at the highest level, and with my hands full now, that seems to have taken a back seat. I still want to play the US Seniors in the US – I’m not too far away from eligibility which is the age qualifier and I really want to work towards preparing for the event.

What’s it like to play with younger players, these days?

It’s nice playing with young golfers, because you see in them a vision to learn and go places - and that’s a nice feeling. Youngsters these days have better facilities and equipment and many of them are really leveraging the opportunities they can get. I also like playing with youngsters, because they are really confident about themselves and what they want to do.

If there’s one tip you’d like to give a young golfer, what would it be?

My words of advice would stress on the inner commitment to the game and a progressive shift in vision that goes from broad, to narrow, to tunnel vision. Golf seems like a fun sport, but calls for focus and commitment.