Sahith Theegala is the most successful Indian athlete in the USA

Last week, Sahith Theegala finished tied for 5th place at the Memorial Golf Tournament in Ohio, U.S. The competition is part of The PGA of America Tour, the organizer of the main tournaments for professional men golfers in North America. The Memorial event is hosted annually by Jack Nicklaus, 82-years-old, the greatest golfer who won 18 major titles, three more than Tiger Woods.

So far in the 2021-2022 golf season, Theegala, 24-years-old, has finished among the top ten golfers in four tournaments. He is ranked 54th in his first year on the PGA Tour. He has won $1.7 million in prize money this year.

Apparently, since he wears their logos on his cap and shirt, Theegala earns sponsorship fees from Ping, the golf equipment vendor, and the technology company Unisys. The deal with Ping calls for him to play a minimum of 11 Ping clubs, including the driver and putter, according to Golf Digest. He is also sponsored by Titliest, the golf ball and clubs vendor. If he wins a PGA tournament, Theegala plans to buy “nice” cars for his parents and himself, he told an interviewer for the PGATOUR.com. The nicest car the family had was a Volkswagen Passat, which his parents got him when turned 16.

Sahith Reddy Theegala is a rare non-White player on the PGA Tour as well as the only Indian American to achieve major success in sports. Born and raised in suburban Los Angeles, he is the son of Karuna and Muralidhar Theegala. He has a younger brother Sahan and still lives at home with his family.

In 1987, his father moved to the United States from Hyderabad, India, to attend graduate school. Theegla’s family traveled to India at least once every two years. His favorite food is rice and curry. In 2001, while his mother battled thyroid cancer, his maternal grandmother Vijaya Laxmi moved to U.S. to help raise Sahith and his brother.

Theegala grew up playing golf on the local municipal courses. While the fees are about $30 for a round for county residents, very few of these courses are challenging and most are not well-maintained. Once, when he was ten, his father took him to practice on the greens of a private club in the Los Angeles suburbs. A man walked upto them and said “You’re not supposed to be here,” his father told The New York Times.

“My dad even though he never plays golf…he’s the one that taught me the game pretty much,” Theegala told PGATOUR.com. “We weren’t in the greatest financial situation when I was a kid” being lower middle class. “And it was different because we had no experience with sports at all, so (my father) spearheaded the whole mission to college and professional golf…He put everything that he could into me. My mom, too, sacrificed so much for me, but my dad’s definitely the reason I’m playing professional golf today.” His parents spent their savings on buying him clubs, paying course fees, travel costs and other golf expenses.

In 2015, Theegala graduated from Diamond Bar High School in California as an honors student, while also winning several golf awards. “I’d say I was a pretty good junior golfer,” he told PGATOUR.com, though not good enough to be actively recruited by Pepperdine in California, ranked among the top ten in men’s golf among U.S. universities. “But at Pepperdine, I went from average to slightly good to what I felt like was ready to be a decent professional golfer,” adds Theegala.

In four playing seasons over five years at Pepperdine, he ended with the best scoring average in the University’s history. In 2019, he was unable to play golf for ten months due to a wrist injury. The next year, more focused and fired up, he won the Haskins Award and the Ben Hogan Award for the best player in U.S. men’s college golf. Theegala credits Michael Beard, the head golf coach at Pepperdine, for his transformation into a golf profesional. He majored in sports administration at the university.

Besides golf, Theegala enjoys playing basketball, chess as well as smaller video games like Among Us on his personal computer, not on consoles. He is a fan of The Ranger’s Apprentice series book; The Spongebob Movie; the TV shows American Ninja Warrior and The Queen’s Gambit; and musicians RL Grime and Flume.

With a height of 6 feet 3 inches and 200 pounds in weight, Theegala’s drives average around 300 yards. . His favorite professional golfers include Tiger Woods, Henrik Stenson and Tony Finau. He likes golf because “the mental toughness needed to play this sport at a high level is unbelievable and it requires your attention all the time,” he told PepperdineWaves.com. “Although it may not necessarily require the most physical ability, it is by far the hardest sport I have ever played.”

“I’m an introvert by nature,” Theegala told The New York Times. “When I’m in the act of playing golf, I don’t even think about the people watching.”

In February this year, during the WM Phoenix Open in Arizona, he was leading in the fourth and final round of the tournament with only two of the 18 holes left to play. Then on the 17th hole, he hit a tee shot that rolled into the water.

Theegala finished tied for third place. Scottie Scheffler, a fellow American who won the WM Open, his first PGA Tour victory, went on to win the Masters Tournament in April. Theegala did not qualify to play in the Masters, the first of the four major golf tournaments held each year.  

At the press conference, following the end of his final round at the Phoenix Open, Theegala broke into tears when asked his reaction to the loss. Wiping off tears, he added that the support he got from fans “means a lot to me.” He also cried on his mother’s shoulder.

His father told a TV interviewer that the loss was part of Theegala’s growth and that “he is learning now…he will do well.” One of his family members added, Theegala “was living his dream.”

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