Monkeys roam the fairways and greens of Royal Nepal Golf Club, which is also home to Sherpa’s dream.
difference. Pratima shoots 79, her highest score on Royal Nepal in more than six months. She is in 10th place and already in danger of falling out of contention for one of the final five spots. She returns to the shed after the round, planning to practice on the green outside, trying to find the stroke she’ll need. Her mother knows she’s also trying to handle the disappointment, which spills out when night comes. “She cried a lot,” Kalpana says. “She received her training in America, but she didn’t hit the ball very well.” THE ROOF OF the world at 29,029 feet, Mount Everest is Nepal’s source of identity while also serving as its spiritual touchstone. About 100 miles away, and more than 4½ miles in descent, lies Kathmandu. A quarter to a third of its 1.3 million residents live below the poverty line. The average Nepali income nearly doubled in the last decade, to just $862 a year. No segment of the population faces hardship more than Nepal’s women. Subject to lower wages, fewer jobs, no property rights and less access to higher education, they form the city’s economic underclass. So even with the golf course right outside their door, the family never considered that Pratima might want to play the game. “In Nepal … very few women play golf,” Pasang says. “This game is for wealthy, well-to-do people. It wasn’t meant for us.” But Pratima saw club members nearly every day
38 ES PN 05. 07. 2018
walking across her playground, taking their swings across her yard. By the time she was 11, she gave voice to what she had long known—she wanted to play the game too. When she asked her father for a golf club, Pasang didn’t walk to the clubhouse to ask. Instead, he went to the far border of the course—to the jungle. “I went out to find a piece of wood,” Pasang recalls. “And I climbed the tree and cut off a piece of branch.” With his knife, he whittled it into what he thought the best shape would be to answer his daughter’s wish. And with the wooden club she played. Every day and every chance she had. She used stray balls from the range, playing early in the morning after she had fed the family’s goats and chickens. And from the beginning, from the first time she gripped the wooden stick, she knew. As she began to share rounds with adults and members, Pratima became a favorite topic of club conversation. Her father heard it. Where might the swing lead his daughter? Into places where the family didn’t belong? Where his daughter wouldn’t truly be welcomed? “I told her to stop,” Pasang says. “I told her to study.” She listened and understood. But she didn’t stop.
Again, when the putts don’t fall, she begins to press harder on the second nine of her round. At one point, her caddie says aloud what they’re both thinking. “There’s just no luck today.” Pratima doesn’t argue. “Isn’t it amazing?” she says in reply. “Things were so different in practice …” The only consolation comes in how the rest of the field plays. No one goes low, the scoring average rises. By the end of the round, Pratima has climbed up one spot, to ninth. She’s still four places out of the final qualifying spot with just one day remaining. After watching her play, Pasang walks with Pratima back down the hill from the clubhouse as they make their way home. “It’s getting more challenging,” she tells her father. “I don’t know how it will end.” Pasang doesn’t break stride. He knows the stakes for his daughter, sees all she has put into the pursuit, and offers a father’s view. “It doesn’t matter how it ends,” he says as they walk. “We tried our best. If we did not do well, then there’s no point regretting it. “Many people come here to climb the mountains and don’t succeed.”
PRATIMA HAS A strong session on the range before play begins on Day 2 of the tournament, but ballstriking isn’t the issue. Neither is distance or accuracy with the longer clubs. Without making putts, there is no way to make scores.
AT 11 YEARS OLD, her swing caught his eye. It was a junior clinic, and the club’s teaching professional, Sachin Bhattarai, knew she was different. “It’s her passion,” he says. “Her passion made her special from the others.”
