PORTLAND, Ore. — Aditi Ashok made national headlines in India as the only Olympic golfer from her country in 2016 and 2020, impressively contending in both competitions. Once again, she holds a unique place as an Olympian—this time for a scheduling reason. She is the only player among 60 in the Paris Games teeing it up in this week’s Portland Classic, less than a week from the start of the women's Olympic competition on Aug. 7.
With the games so close, Ashok's peers peppered her with the same question as she walked down the Columbia Edgewater Country Club's driving range on Tuesday.
Why are you here?
"I planned to play this, and I like the golf course," Ashok said. "I feel like it's a good week for me. And I think it would be good prep for the Olympics anyway. That's why I wanted to play Portland."
Ashok, 26, will fly out after the finish of the Portland Classic on Sunday and arrive in Paris with only a day to prepare for the women's competition, while adjusting to the jet lag of a nine-hour time-zone adjustment. On the positive side, she won't be completely blind to the Olympic course, having played a couple of practice rounds at Le Golf National before last month's Amundi Evian Championship.
Knowing she was the likely representative for her country at the start of the year, Ashok decided to schedule her trip to the Paris this way at the beginning of the season. She said she enjoys the tree-lined, narrow Columbia Edgewater course and wanted to play the Pacific Northwest venue for the fifth time in her career.
In 2016, Ashok was the youngest male or female golfer in the Brazil Olympics and opened with a pair of 68s to trail 36-hole leader Stacy Lewis by four. The then-18-year-old ultimately finished T-41. The impact of her performance was felt in her home country, as there was a spike in internet searches for golf in India.
The Tokyo Games in 2021 continued Ashok's Olympic ascendance. Standing at World No. 200 at the time, she nearly putted her way to the podium by gaining 13 strokes on the field on the greens and finished fourth. The performance garnered praise from her nation's president and vice president.
"I remember in Tokyo, I was just happy to play well and happy that a lot more people back home, who don't get to watch me play, would get to watch me play," Ashok said. "And that kind of fueled my motivation to play better. So I know they would get to see me on TV."
Asked how her performance in the Olympics could be affected by the trip from Oregon to Paris, Ashok pointed out her success after a cross-Atlantic flight last November. Following a T-50 in the LPGA's CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Fla., she flew to Marbella, Spain, where Ashok won the LET's finale, the Andalucia Costa de Espana. Her closing 66 to win didn't show any waning energy from the trip.
"I don't think it [travel] affects me too much," Ashok said. "I just do my thing and try to keep each week separate from the other."
At the Olympics, Ashok will be playing in a fifth straight tournament—all in different time zones. Her current run started with a T-17 in the Evian on July 11, then a T-33 in the Dana Open in Ohio. She traveled to Canada for a missed cut in the CPKC Women's Open before arriving in Portland. Ashok, as much as she could, downplayed how much the traveling would impact her.
"I don't think it's that big a deal, but yeah, I guess we'll find out," Ashok said. "I'm just focusing on one day at a time, so obviously I'm focusing on this week."