Top five sports-persons of Indian descent

2. Vijay Singh, Golf

Vijay Singh

Nicknamed “The Big Fijian”, Vijay Singh was a professional golfer of Indian descent from Fiji. He was at his top form in between 2004-2005, when he was ranked World Number One for about 32 weeks.

Son of Mohan Singh, an aircraft technician, he showed immense talent in many sports like Snooker, Cricket, Football and Rugby. But, his favorite sport was Golf.

He started his professional career with a win in the Malaysian open in 1984. He also won the Nigerian Open in 1988.

He was first spotted by experts when he won the Volvo Open Championship in 1989 at Italy. 1989 was a great year for him as he won 4 titles — Volvo Open di Firenze, Ivory Coast Open, Nigerian Open and Zimbabwe Open.

After entering the PGA tour, he won the Buick classic in 1993. In 1995, he won the Phoenix Open along with the Buick Classic. 1997 saw him win both the Memorial Tournament and the Buick Open.

After 1998 , he won several PGA Championships. 2004 was the year in which he was most successful. Singh began 2004 by winning the AT; T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am winning $954,000 as prize money. This was his first tour win in 2004 and his 16th all-time win on the PGA Tour. It was his 12th consecutive top-10 finish, which is two shy of Jack Nicklaus’ all-time record. A win at the Deutsche Bank Championship followed. With this win, he overtook Tiger Woods at the top of the Official World Golf Ranking ending Woods’ streak of remaining at the top for 264 weeks.

He was successful even after he turned 40 in 2005 and won many championships. After 2005, his biggest achievement was finishing at the top of the 2008 FedEx Cup.