IGPL, Paes come together to take golf to schools

With 18 Grand Slam titles down him, Leander Paes is present hoping to nutrient much Olympic champions crossed sports, including golf.

The tennis fable has partnered with the Indian Golf Premier League (IGPL) successful the Golf Growth Initiative, a programme to instrumentality play to schools and interiors of the state and make the adjacent procreation of Indian golfers, successful relation with the Indian Golf Union (IGU), the Professional Golfers’ Association of India (PGAI) and The Golf Foundation (TGF).

His eventual aim, Paes said, was to physique 10 academies for antithetic sports passim the state successful the adjacent 10 years.

“I person the Flying Man Academy, dispersed crossed 250 acres successful Bhubaneswar. It has 100,000 kids divided into 40,000 tribal, 40,000 paid Indian kids and 20,000 planetary kids from 70 countries. We play 16 sports.

“Through these 16 sports, we empower the younker not conscionable astatine the grassroots but besides astatine the apical of the pyramid. I privation to make Olympic champions. My absorption successful play is to make academies, driving ranges, play courses, plan new-age grooming methods and instrumentality the crippled to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities and villages,” Paes said.

The programme volition bring unneurotic immoderate of the biggest names successful Indian play with the likes of Jeev Milkha Singh, Jyoti Randhawa, Shiv Kapur, Gaganjeet Bhullar, S.S.P. Chawrasia and Gaurav Ghei acting arsenic mentors. The six, interestingly, volition besides beryllium portion of the six franchises successful the play league that the IGPL plans to motorboat successful March with auctions for the aforesaid apt to beryllium successful the mediate of February.

The IGPL besides announced a concern with TGF to thrust grassroots scouting and the constitution of world-class grooming facilities successful Odisha, Gurugram and Andhra Pradesh starting this year.