My Hero: Jeev Milkha Singh On His Guide, Father And Friend

I will cherish my childhood and the time I spent with my father for the rest of my life. Everyone is close to their parents, but I had a special relationship with him.

For instance, he was a hard task master. If I achieved something, he would say, ‘It’s great what you’ve done. But I want you to be the best in the world. Don’t stop here.’

In that way, besides being a father, he was a friend and a guide who would always raise the bar for me.

There was this amazing moment in my teens I’ll never forget. You know how when you’re a teenager, you want to meet your girlfriend or go out partying. I was preparing for a tournament, and whenever I wasn’t practising, he would quietly notice.

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“Has Jeev gone for practice?” he would ask my mother. I would go just for an hour and come back. I played one or two tournaments in this manner, and the results were very disappointing.

He would again ask my mother what was wrong with their son, and she told him my focus was elsewhere. Then, one day, with my tickets already booked for a tournament, he came home in the evening, and said, “Son, come, let’s have a chat.”

As he sat me down, he told me, “You’re not going for this tournament.”

I said no—my tickets were booked! I was ready. “Don’t lie to yourself, you’re not going,” he repeated.

The trip got cancelled, and I recall I cried a lot. I still remember what I said: “Man, you are the worst guy possible!”

But it actually was one of the best lessons I could have learnt from him. Had he not done that, my focus wouldn’t have returned. “When your game is right, that’s the time you need to play,” he had told me.

My dad was also an incredible friend to me. I could discuss anything and everything with him. Whenever I wasn’t on tour, we would spend time together.

Every evening, we would sit together and have a drink. I usually had two, but when the third was poured, he would turn to my mother and ask, “Is he your son? Is he a sportsman?”

My mom would just give me a long look and say, “Stop.”

I’d say I would have a small one, and the moment would pass. My dad, who loved poetry then shared a couplet with me, like he always would:

Khudi ko kar buland itna ke har taqdeer

se pehle

Khuda bande se khud pooche, bata teri

raza kya hai

I said, “Dad, that was a bouncer for me.” He then translated it: “Work so hard that even God is impressed with you and asks, ‘What would you like, son? What would you like as a human being that I can give you?’”

He's my hero because he didn't just inspire me mentally and emotionally— he touched countless souls. He was a child with children, an adult with adults.

And I saw it first hand when we travelled. People would always rush to him for autographs and interviews. Once they were done, he would tell them, “Yeh mera ladka hai, Jeev Milkha Singh. Yeh golf khelta hai,” (This is my son, Jeev Milkha Singh. He plays golf). This would be his way of gently letting me know that I needed to work a little bit harder to get close to what he had achieved.

When my mother passed away on June 13, 2021, and my father followed on the 18th—I fell into a deep slump for six months. I stopped playing golf. I just lost interest. I didn’t want to play anymore. I gave up on life completely, because I couldn’t take it. I was running from one hospital to the next, and it all became too much to bear.

But in January 2022, I decided that I was going to play this game for them. My parents had introduced me to golf, and I promised myself that I would play for them and win for them.

I always tell the young kids today to remember one thing in life: change is constant. If you want to be a top athlete—or at the top in whatever you’re doing in life— you’ve got to set high standards and believe in what you’re doing. Belief builds confidence in your actions, earning you trust. Once trust is established, it paves the way for a solid routine.

In a similar vein, my father always spoke about a few key things to everyone. “Believe in what you do, and you’ll achieve it,” he would say. It was his favourite line. “Dad, it’s like a record”—I once said to him —“You just keep repeating yourself.”

He replied, “Son, you think it’s a record, but you’ll understand later.” Today, I find myself saying the same sentence to my son.

As told to Nitin Sreedhar