CHANDIGARH: Transparency, Asian Tour events and democratic decision making are the key areas, the newly elected Chandigarh Golf Club president Retired Lt Col HS Chahal (Bobby) aims to focus on after being voted to the top post with a winning margin of 99 votes here on Monday.
In a three-cornered contest for the first time in the history of the club, Chahal secured 505 votes to comfortably beat Major Rajinder Singh Virk (retd) (406 votes) and SPS Ghai (260 votes) in which 1,154 members exercised their franchise on Sunday.
Besides the three, the counting for the 11 executive committee member posts are currently underway and expected by late Monday night. A total of 31 candidates are in the fray.
Chahal, who has been associated with the club in various roles over the past many years, said the main motto of the new committee will be performance with honesty. Thanking the voters for turning out in huge numbers while braving the scorching heat, Chahal said the new committee will ensure a smooth transition.
"Performance with honesty will be the motto of the new committee. Once the executive committee is elected, we will meet and create a roadmap for the next term. We have a few plans and will try to execute those while also taking forward the previous team's plans. Don't expect radical changes," Chahal told TOI.
Chahal had won three elections of the executive committee in the past, besides serving as honorary secretary of the club in 2018. Highlighting his priorities, he said the focus will be on bringing more Asian Tour events, while ensuring the club members aren't affected as the greens are restricted for use during tournaments.
"We already host a lot of international tournaments. The Chandigarh Golf Club is one of the main venues in India for all PGTI events. We will take forward the previous committee's plans of getting more Asian Tour tournaments," he said.
"As administrators our job is to provide facilities to the golfers and the club members. It is not in our hands to create golfers. During tournaments, the club restricts members from participating for three four days which understandably is difficult. But even then we will try to bring more tournaments and figure out a midway which also works in favour of our members," he added.
When asked if he has plans of increasing the number of memberships, Chahal explained, "We have a ceiling on the number of members at 1800. It's a sports club, can't afford to increase membership as that would hardly leave any space to play. We encourage young participants and already have student memberships for budding golfers."
Many prominent personalities of the region turned up to cast their vote on Sunday. The last elections to be contested took place in 2018. In 2019, only one candidate had filed nomination for president and 11 members for the executive committee, leading the elections to be held unanimously.
In 2020, due to the Covid-19 lockdown and restrictions, no annual general meeting (AGM) or election could be held and were deferred to 2021, when the president and the committee were elected unanimously. This year too, the elections were postponed from the originally scheduled January 30 due to the rise in Covid cases and strict curbs.
