The veteran golfer believes 72 The League’s match-play format and breakneck pace can bridge the gap between cricket fans and golf’s growing domestic circuit.
Arjun Atwal has spent two decades navigating professional golf’s most competitive circuits. He knows what works, what drags, and what bores audiences to distraction. So when the veteran Indian golfer surveyed 72 The League — the PGTI’s new franchise experiment — he saw something he has not often seen in Indian golf: urgency.
“It’s not like typical golf where you have to wait four hours, then three days and four days to see a winner,” Atwal said Saturday, speaking ahead of the league’s opening ceremony. “Here, matches are decided that day, in 18 holes. Points go up and down. It’s going to be really exciting.”
Match Play, Team Format, and the Cricket Playbook
The league, launched by the PGTI in partnership with Game of Life Sports, runs across Classic Golf and Country Club, Jaypee Greens and Qutub Golf Course, featuring a fast-paced match-play team format rarely seen in Indian professional golf. For Atwal, the structure is not just a novelty — it is an essential adaptation for a country where cricket owns the collective imagination.
“People who don’t even know about golf, but they know about cricket as a team sport, they can see that golf can be played either way,” Atwal said. “I think it’s a brilliant idea to market our game in our country, even to the grassroots levels. You can play match play, team golf. You can play individual golf. There are so many different options.”
Visibility, Pressure and the Making of Stars
Atwal believes the league’s structure — condensed into two weeks, high stakes, and public scorekeeping — will do more than entertain. It will expose players in ways the traditional tour does not. “People are going to get to know these players a little bit better, because they’re going to be exposed, they’re going to play a team sport right now,” he said. “All these players are going to get popular for that.”
He also sees performance under pressure as a proving ground for young players looking to compete internationally. “They’re going to feel more pressure playing for so much money, in a condensed two-week period,” Atwal said. “I think this will be really good for everybody.”
Progress, Yes — But the World Still Waits
While Atwal praised the league’s potential, he was clear-eyed about Indian golf’s larger challenge. “I think it’s really improved, in a general sense where golf has grown, the money has grown financially,” he said. “But I would like to see more of these youngsters get success outside of India as well.”
It is a sentiment born from experience. Atwal remains the only Indian to have won on the PGA Tour, a 2010 triumph at the Wyndham Championship that still stands alone in the record books. For all the domestic growth, international breakthroughs have been scarce.
On Kartik Singh and Turning Pro Early
The league’s youngest signee, 16-year-old Kartik Singh, was picked up by Mumbai Aces for Rs 14.40 lakh at Monday’s auction — a figure that raised eyebrows and questions about the wisdom of turning professional so young. Atwal, for his part, sees no issue.
“He’s an anomaly, because he’s turned pro at a young age,” Atwal said. “But if there are youngsters that are good enough to turn pro, why not? If it’s going to be a career in golf, then they might as well turn pro young and go get it.”
‘I’m More of a Dad Right Now’
As for his own career, Atwal has stepped back from full-time competition, splitting his time between limited appearances on the senior tour in the United States and family obligations. “I’ve been more involved being a dad with my sons. They’re into basketball,” he said. “One is in college, one is in school. So I’ll play a little bit more this year when I go back in April. But yeah, I’m more of a dad right now.”
It is a graceful shift for a player who once carried Indian golf’s international ambitions on his shoulders. Now, he watches the next generation attempt the same — and hopes a league built for speed and spectacle can give them a better launchpad than he ever had.