A profile of Fijian Golfer Vijay Singh

Vijay Singh, also known as the "The Big Fijian" is a Fijian professional golfer, born 22nnd of February 1963. Singh has won 64 tournaments including 34 events on the PGA tour, three Major championships; one Master’s title in the year 2000 and two PGA Championships in 1998 and 2004 respectively. In 2006, Singh was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Singh held the World number one spot in the Official World Golf Ranking for 32 weeks in the years 2004 and 2005.

Vijay was only the 12th man to reach the World Number 1 ranking and was also the only new No.1 in the 2000s decade.  Vijay was the leading PGA Tour money winner for the year 2003, 2004, and 2008, also clinching the FedEx cup in 2008.

Personal life

Vijay Singh, an Indo-Fijan was born in Laukota and grew up in Nadi. His main residence is at Ponte Vendra Beach, Florida. Singh is a man known for his meticulous preparation, most times arriving well before his matches, and staying late after to continue practice. Singh’s brother 'Krishna' is also a professional golfer.

Early life and amateur career

Without doubt, Vijay Singh deserves every accolade he has gotten, and highly deserves the induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame. But all credit goes to no one else but him, for his resilience, hard work, and steadfastness. Growing up as a young star in the South Pacific, he would walk down and walk 100 yards in darkness through drainage pipes with his clubs across his back.

Singh said " “Going under the airport runway through a drainage ditch to get to the golf club, those are things you don’t think about when you are doing it,”  "Why walk three miles around when it takes you five minutes to get across?”

Singh already had that resilient spirit in him as a young boy. He had that drive to work hard and become a successful professional golfer.  Mohan, Singh's father worked at the Nadi airport and was a captain at the golf club. He got Vijay involved in golf when he was just 11. Vijay has two elder brothers who were better golfers than himself, and they inspired him to improve even more.

Professional career

Singh won the 1984 Malaysian PGA Championship, two years after he became a professional. However, Singh's career wasn't as smooth as expected. He had some crisis in his career when he suspended from the Asia Golf Circuit in 1985 over the allegations that he doctored his scorecard.

There were rumours that he lowered his scorecard from one over to one under in other to make the cut. In response to this, Singh denied the allegation levelled against him, saying that it would have resulted in a total disqualification rather than a mere ban if truly the allegations were concrete. After a proper investigation by the tour, he was found guilty, the Asian PGA Tournament president John Bender, issued Singh a lifetime ban on Asian PGA Tour play.

Singh felt he has been unjustly and harshly treated because the marker was “the son of a VIP in the Indonesian PGA." The relentless Singh then took up a job at the Keningau Club in Sabah, Malaysia, and later moved to the Miri Golf Club in Sarawak. Singh continued to gain experience during this period of hardship, and saved up the money required to bring back his career, and began to re-enter tournaments.

He then teamed up with a sponsor 'Red Baron' in 1988, who funded his trip to Africa to compete on the now-defunct Safari Circuit where he got his first event win. He later went on to enter the European Tour Qualifying School for the second consecutive year.

Between 1989 and 1997, Singh had his first European and American wins. He won his very first European Tour title at the Volvo Open Championship in Italy and finish 24th on the European Tour Order of Merit in 1989, helping him forget his early struggles.

He clinched the Volvo Open di Firenze, Ivory Coast Open, Nigerian Open, and Zimbabwe Open, making it a total of four wins for the year 1989. He then finished tied for 23rd at the Open Championship. He was once more the European Tour champion in 1990 and won the Tournament twice again in 1992. During this period, he dominated tournaments in Asia and Africa, thereby winning several titles.

In 1993, he joined the PGA Tour and won his first-ever PGA event, the Buick Classic. He was then named the 1993 PGA Tour Rookie of the year. He went off the scene in 1994 after being hampered with several problems but he came back in 1995, and like the resilient person he is known to be, he won the Buick Classic again and also the Phoenix Open in that year (1995). He went on to claim the Memorial Tournament and the Buick Open in 1997.

His finest and best moment of his career came between “1998-2000”. He won his first Major title: The PGA Championship at Sahelee County Club in 1998. He had 70-66-67-68 shot in four days.  Two years later, he went on to win the Masters defeating Ernie Els by three strokes.

Winning the Masters was another big achievement for Singh, as it is indeed one of the biggest achievements for any golfer.

Vijay Singh PGA Tour Wins (34)

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