India's Singh pursues a childhood dream

A hero in his home country, although less well-known internationally than his namesake, Vijay, India's Jeev Milkha Singh has set his sights on achieving a childhood fantasy by becoming the first Asian to clinch a major title at this week's U.S. Masters.

"Growing up I always dreamed of winning a major championship and my favourite major is the Masters," Singh, 36, told Reuters while completing his tournament preparations on Wednesday.

"If I could do that, it would be a very, very special moment for me. It would be a dream come true."

The Chandigarh native became the first Indian to play at the Masters last year, tying for 37th on his debut in the season's opening major.

Although bitterly disappointed to shoot a seven-over-par 79 in the final round on Augusta's heavily contoured layout, he believes he learned valuable lessons.

"Last year, I learned you have to be patient on these greens," Singh said. "That's the key, I think, because you are going to get some bad breaks here.

"You have to take your medicine where you need to, if you've hit a bad shot, just take it and don't try to be too smart. If you try to be too smart on this golf course, it will beat you up."

With Augusta National relatively soft following recent rain, Singh plans to use his driver much more this week than he did last year. He will also carry a lob wedge in his bag.

"With the fairways being wet, you need to hit the driver otherwise you will have long irons in there," the 2006 Asian Tour number one said. "Last year the course was firm and it was playing fast.

"It's going to be really tough because you're hitting long irons in there, plus you've got to have distance control and you've got to make sure you hit it in the right spots.

"If you don't, with the severe slopes, the ball is just going to go away from you and you've got a really tough chip coming in."

Augusta's slick, sloping greens have embarrassed the best players in the world and Singh vividly recalls his worst experience at last year's Masters.

"On the first hole on the last day, I made an eight with no penalty shots," he said, referring to an ugly quadruple-bogey eight at the uphill par-four first.

"I hit it right of the green with my second (shot), had the full green to work with and chipped it over the green in the bunker," he said.

"From the bunker I hit it over the green again, chipped it over the green again, chipped it on and two-putted."

Singh comes from an illustrious sporting family. He is proud to say that he owes his intense competitive instinct to his father, Milkha Singh, one of India's most famous athletes, who was part of a four-man photo finish in 1960 Rome Olympics 400 metres final. Known as 'The Flying Sikh', Milkha Singh also briefly held the world record over the distance, before losing it when all four men bettered the mark in the Olympic final. Milkha Singh had a career record of 77 victories in 80 races, although to his great regret he missed out on Olympic gold, silver or bronze by the merest fraction of a second.

Today a keen amateur golfer, Milkha Singh follws his son's career closely, and always has good advice at the ready. "Discipline. You have to be disciplined if you want to be world class," he says, "That's what I tell my son Jeev. I give him the example of Tiger Woods, and hope he would bring the medal I couldn't."

Jeev Milkha Singh is scheduled to tee off with British Open champion Padraig Harrington of Ireland and Canada's Mike Weir, winner of the 2003 Masters, at 1034 local (1434 GMT) in Thursday's opening round.

April 9, 2008