Golf prodigy swings for glory
Dhanushan standing tall on the golf range
One of the main objectives of Kanas Kumar Dhanushan, one of the leading junior golfers in the country, is not just about winning competitions but improving the standard of the sport and keeping Sri Lanka’s flag flying high in the world.
The 15-year-old Springfield College, Borella student is articulate about what he wants to achieve in life just as he is proficient with a golf club in hand.
Standing tall at 168cm, the lanky youngster seems destined for greatness having fallen in love with the sport when he started swinging a club at his father’s indoor academy at the tender age of four.
Living adjacent to the course at the Royal Colombo Golf Club down Model Farm Road was a big advantage as he enrolled into the Junior National Pool and progressed to where he is today.
But his passion for the sport was imbibed by his father K. Kanaskumar, a Teaching Professional and SLGU (Sri Lanka Golf Union) National Coach for 2019/20 and at the South Asian Games Kathmandu Nepal.
“I am basically an indoor golfer. At the beginning, I trained indoors and did not play in RCGC. After some time, I started joining the Junior National clinic and started entering the golf course,” said Dhanushan who was selected to the Junior National pool about eight years ago.
Dhanushan who practices daily at the indoor range at Model Farm Road, is a student member at Victoria Golf Club (VGCR) and Shangri La Hambantota. In fact, the first win of his fledgling career was at the VGCR in Kandy in 2014 and rose to become number one in the Bronze (Under-14) category the following year.
He savoured success internationally when he won the 2018 TNGF Junior Championship in Chennai, India and continued his prolific form to emerge champion at the Scanwell Logistics Junior Open and Junior Matchplay Sunrise Open in 2019.
“My goal is to become a professional golfer and represent my country internationally. I want everyone to know that there is a country like Sri Lanka and there are (golf) players from Sri Lanka. Not only me. I would like to produce more students from Sri Lanka. That is what my goal is all about – to improve golf standards in Sri Lanka. Overseas players are turning pro at 20 or 25. In Sri Lanka they turn pro late. Our standards are good but I have a feeling we have to improve more,” said Dhanushan, recipient of the Crysbro-NOCSL scholarship programme which hopes to produce the next Olympic champion.
Dhanushan lining up to putt
He commended the junior programme conducted by RCGC to improve junior golf.
“The standard is good but compared to foreign countries I think our country needs a bit more attention. I would like to specifically improve junior golf. It’s the foundation for a good player. The RCGC is doing a brilliant job working with junior golf,” he said.
The eldest in a family of three, Dhanushan feels the pulse of players who have ambitions to play golf but come from low-income families since he also hails from a middle-class background.
“Because golf is a rich sport, giving opportunities to normal kids is like a dream come true even for a player like me. I grew up in a middle-class family. I know how important it is to get a pair of shoes even because it’s so expensive. It’s not like other sports. Even a golf stick costs about more than Rs 50,000, the latest one,” said Dhanushan whose wish is to see more juniors taking up the sport.
Asked how difficult or different it was to transform himself from becoming an indoor golfer to playing outdoors, he said: “Yes it was actually a bit difficult for me. Indoors my father taught me the correct swing and all this technique. It was a bit of a great task for me to move out and play because indoors you only concentrate on the swing. Outdoors it’s a whole different technique. You have to check this wind problem when you play a shot. It was quite difficult but also challenging and I learnt a lot by playing outdoors.”
However, his game improved tremendously after playing outdoors.
“At the beginning I thought golf is all about the swing but after that when I moved out my mindset changed that golf is not about the swing. It’s about your fitness, dedication, everything because when you move out of your walls, you have great competition. I think golf is all about having the dedication and having that passion to get that goal. I am working on that. I am still chasing my goal,” said Dhanushan whose two sisters have also started playing golf indoors.
Although his strength is his swing with his average driver distance being 280 yards, he is also strong in the short game.
“I fell in love with chipping and also in iron play,” said Dhanushan expressing his gratitude for being selected for the scholarship.
“It is a great thing for an upcoming player. Not only in my sport, for all other sports. Giving opportunity like this really means a lot to everyone. I would like to see players who are dedicated, don’t have any facilities but have the talent benefit. There are many players around like that. This scholarship really means a lot to them. Players should take advantage of this,” said Dhanushan who turns 16 in July.