Avani Prashanth: Teenager, pure athlete, competitive golfing beast

For the golf-removed, first, the introductions. Meet Avani Prashanth, 15, who has shaken off that gooey ‘promising youngster’ marker and turned into age-neutral competitive golfing beast. Who gets requests to play rounds with teenage boys from their eager parents because she hits a long, mean ball. Of an average driving distance of 273 yards. For context, the LPGA’s latest statistics say the world No 13 has an average driving distance of 272.086. A 15-year-old Indian girl hitting 273, who’da thunk.

PREMIUM

Now that has your attention, here’s more. When transitioning between 14 and 15, Avani competed with pros in 10 of the 15-leg Hero Women’s Golf Tour 2021. She won two legs, runner-up in two more and never finished below eighth in the other six. She was the youngest winner of the All India Ladies Amateur title—both formats—and owns the national junior girls title too. In April, she grabbed the sole spot alongside Aditi on the Indian women’s team for the now-delayed Asian Games in a trial against pros. This week, she represents India at the Queen Sirikit Cup—the prestigious Asia-Pacific amateur team championship in Singapore, rounds starting Tuesday.

Avani’s giant leap bracketing her amongst the top Indian women golfers, including Olympic fourth spot finisher Aditi Ashok, is a breakthrough but is not sudden. It’s taken a 10-year swirling cocktail of prodigy-level obsession and nutso-level parenting, with a mind-bender garnish. Avani spent much time working on golf, particularly over the last two years, in an improbable place: inside a 20x15 ft room in her Bangalore apartment. During Covid. It’s like many other apartment rooms, with bank of “woodwork” wardrobes on one long wall, a window on the other, gear, golf bags strewn around and a net strung up at one end.

No matter how large the space, the idea of golf training—not just putting but course simulation using drivers, woods, irons and wedges—in an apartment is incompatible. Until you see how it’s done. Inside Avani’s building complex, there’s a long stretch alongside the blocks—the walking path?—that is a small, fairway-ish distance. Maybe, practice rounds here? MS Prashanth, Avani’s father, coach, caddie laughs, “no, no, we can’t use that—the apartment people would kill us.”

The family bought the indoor practice net, easily dismantled and installed, more than seven years ago, in 2014, Avani aged 8. Prashanth says, “I wanted her to be soaked into the game at all times… there should not be a time when she wants to play and she cannot. This gave us the ability to practice at any time.”

As a corporate executive, multinationals sent Prashanth from Gurgaon to Nigeria before returning to Bangalore in 2014, his daughter’s golf the constant. That indoor net meant when got home, Avani could show him what her game looked like. With training devices at hand, like the Launch Monitor (LM), turning strokes into data. “We realised it would be boring if she didn’t know what was happening every time she hit the ball.” Their first LM cost $500. Mother Surekha says of the next version, “we used to look a little weird, taking it even to tournaments, but we wanted to get her into the habit of using it everywhere. Unless you know how to measure how you’re doing, you won’t get better.” Avani's current LM is cutting edge used by PGA pros, which records ball and club speed, launch angle, azimuth (yes, look it up), spin-tilt axis, club path, etc, etc.

To show the sceptic how everything works, Avani, just back from a gym session, turns on the Monitor. A laptop behind shows us the course of choice. The ball is placed on a plastic tee sticking out from under a mat that becomes a tee-box. She picks a driver and settles into her stance. In the instant when her shoulders turn and her swing begins, we’re not in an apartment any more. The club whips down through the air, Avani goes into torque, and the ball shoots into the net. The LM on the floor next to the tee is doing its readings; the laptop behind her has noted the distance. It says the ball landed at 265 yards, rolling ahead.

No wall has been cracked or light fittings wrecked, we’re still in an apartment near Bellandur Lake. The ball meekly rolls back to Avani’s feet. She’s hit it clean.

Behind the smoothness of everything in its place, of a teenage golfer preparing for the pros, are her parents’ energies and direction. Being at her shoulder everywhere, carrying her bag, watching her work at play. Pushy parents? When the word “forced” buzzed around Avani, it made her mad, “I’m not being forced to play, I want to win the tournament.” Surekha didn’t get to hear much of the buzz, “Prashanth did, but not anymore.”

Along with extensive golf research, for six years in a row Prashant and Avani travelled to the US Kids golf events, qualifiers in Scotland, finals in the US, making friends, in sync with the sport’s latest. Avani is currently being trained by English coach Laurence Brotheridge—online, offline, their data monitors calibrated and schedules fitted around Covid regulations.

Covid gave Avani the time to work not just on her game but on bringing strength to it—again, with home equipment, dumbells, therabands. The fitness work meant her distance carry went from 220 to 260 yards. “It was kind of my goal to come out of lockdown as a completely changed and transformed a player,” Avani says.

“I could improve on many things that you can’t during tournaments. Where do you get eight months of off-season? My game would not be where it is now.”

What we have in Avani is a pure athlete—school football captain, track champion who has chosen golf, aiming to make it her profession, her parents aiming to give her the best, most timely inputs. Competition and coaching supported by physical and mental strength and conditioning, nutritional expertise. What Avani has on her own is the competitor’s hunger and push towards perfection.

“I need myself to hit the best shot every time because I play with good players. All boys, they are the best in India, they play on the Asian tour. I can’t have an off-day.” She says this lightly, with a smile but you know she’s serious.

At age 9, she’s made her emotional-on-course Dad sign a caddie contract, which he still carries in his office bag. One of Avani’s dos was “stay calm”. One of the don’ts is clear ice: “I am PRETTY SURE of my yardage, no need to worry about my club choices.” At 14, Daddy-caddie was fired, “I gave him too many chances and it didn’t work,” she says. Again, Avani Prashanth, teen golfer and the real deal is grinning, but you know she means it.

Experience unrestricted digital access with HT Premium

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.