Kiran - queen of the greens

26/ 2/2007

THE champion golfer Kiran Matharu is lost in a crowd of suits - her financial advisers, her agents, her father - when I go to meet her at the London hotel where Team Matharu has just had its annual meeting.

I notice her finally, loitering in a doorway, sheepish but relaxed in combats and a hoodie. A bit too trendy for her surroundings, she seems out of place. Perhaps that is the story of her life, though.

In the world of professional golf, Kiran Matharu is an outsider thrice

over: young, female and Asian. Late last year she qualified for the Ladies' European Tour and will be its youngest player when she plays her first match.

She has won the English Ladies' Amateur Championship, and the Faldo Junior Series, twice; and represented Great Britain and Ireland in the Curtis Cup. At 17, she is the same age as the international golfing superstar, Michelle Wie, but is already being touted as a better player.

Being Britain's rising star of golf puts a lot of pressure on such a young pair of shoulders but Matharu seems down to earth, although clearly in possession of an iron self-belief. "I just signed a deal yesterday," she confides. "My first one. I don't know if I'm allowed to say [how much]."

Is it five figures?

"It's six figures."

Over the past few years the popularity of women's golf has been building steadily, with most interest among 18- to 24-year-olds.

There is no question that a sport traditionally associated with middle-class white males has been broadening its base, with Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie the most visible trailblazers. Matharu is clearly on course to become a sort of British Wie. Have they met?

"I've played with her. She's nice. She doesn't talk much, but she's probably been told not to talk. She's, like, been told to do everything so she's not actually her own person. Every time I was talking to her, her dad would, like, call her in their own language and call her away from me. It was a bit weird. She's not a normal 16- or 17-year-old."

Listening to Matharu talk about Wie is like catching a smattering of casual 17-year-old girl-talk at a bus stop - an impression accentuated by her Vicky Pollardesque vocabulary. As Matharu discusses her biggest rival, I have to remind myself that I am listening to the most naturally talented young golfer in Britain talk about the most famous female golfer in the world.

But Matharu's comments about Wie go to the heart of a common theme with young sporting prodigies, especially girls from a non-white background. Think of the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena.

There is a stereotype that suggests that behind every girl sporting champion stands a domineering father, pushing her to succeed, whatever the cost.

Ted Beckham had an enormous influence on the young David's training regime, but we never read that Beckham is the product of a Svengali-like father. It has, however, been said about Matharu. Her father, Amarjit, has been accused of trying to fulfil his own dreams of pro golfing success t

hrough her - he never allowed his daughter to play off the women's tees, even as a learner, and deliberately put her in the highest level of competition.

Matharu strenuously denies that her success is down to having a pushy dad, though. "It depends what you mean by pushy - you mean making you do it or just supporting you? No, my dad doesn't make me do it. He's just got me the best opportunities - the best coach, manager, everything. But he hasn't made me do it."

Sporting enthusiasm is ingrained in the family. "My cousins play football, my brother used to play cricket for Leeds and Yorkshire, and my other cousins used to play with him. My dad has played sports all his life."


Perhaps this helps to explain why she has achieved what no other British Asian girl yet has - international sporting success.

Her father may not have pushed her, but without his enthusiasm and encouragement she would never have picked up a golf club. "My father used to play golf a long time ago, before I was born, and he started again when I was 11, six years ago.

"I just went with him one day to watch. I was messing about, hitting some balls, and one of the professionals who worked there told my dad about it.

"Then six months later I played for Yorkshire and a year and a half after that I played for England. I didn't realise what I was doing, to be honest."

Matharu may be the next Tiger Woods, but she is also an ordinary teenager from Chapeltown, Leeds - as different as it is possible to be from the long-established golfing stereotype of a stuffy, garishly dressed bloke in his 50s.

There is a strict rule, says Matharu, that all women competitors in the forthcoming European tour must "not dress bad".

What does '"dressing bad" mean?

"Not looking like a woman, basically. There's a lot of lesbians [in golf] - 70 per cent or something silly. I'm not sure if it's 70 per cent but I've heard - check it, cos its true."

Would it worry her to be mistaken for a lesbian?

"I won't be, though, will I? Cos I've got, like, Pumas - that's the most trendiest stuff you can wear in golf now. I'll be wearing that."

Everything about Matharu - her clothes, her comments, her attitudes - suggests a normal but hugely naive Yorkshire teenager, who, through some freakish excess of talent, now finds herself a globetrotting superstar.

Her eyes light up most when we talk, not about golf, but about hip-hop and R&B. Her proudest moment was being invited on to MTV and she chats about her favourite DJs, while asking me if I have heard of top golfers: "I know DJ Spoony - I text him quite a lot.

"He plays golf, he loves golf. Have you never heard his show? And I know a lot of golfers like Nick Faldo - have you heard of him? He's the best British player."

On race, an issue that dominated Tiger Woods' ascent, Matharu is, to use one of her favourite phrases, not bothered. "It was bad when my dad started playing but it's not that bad any more.

Some golf clubs didn't let me in. They didn't actually say it's cos you're not white but I think it was obvious, cos they were letting other juniors in and they weren't letting me in and I was playing for England at the time."

If anything, she says, it is now an advantage. "Yeah, it's been better for me. I've got better opportunities because I'm Asian and I'm different, and I think it's good. It's not a bad thing any more."

One quality she does have in common with Woods - a characteristic of all sporting greats - is that effortless self-belief.

How long does she think it will take her to become the best?

"Three years. Because you have to earn points."

She has plenty of time.

"Yes - I'm the youngest one."

And her cheerful analysis seems perfectly well placed.

This article by Urmee Khan was first published in Asian News' sister paper, The Guardian.

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