Indian origin golfer Suri inspired by Woods

Dubai - Suri's grandfather M. Suryanaryana played cricket, tennis and golf

He has an impressive sporting bloodline and Julian Suri lived up to the legacy by carding four under in the opening round of the season-ending DP World Tour Championship on Thursday at the Jumeirah Golf Easte's The Earth course.
He is a fourth generation of M. Buchi Babu Naydu, known as the 'Father of Cricket in South India' who organised cricket clubs for native Indians towards the end of the 19th century. India's oldest cricket tournament, played in Chennai, is named after Buchi Babu.
Julian's grandfather M. Suryanaryana played cricket, tennis and golf. "My grandfather was pretty instrumental in starting me in golf," the New York-born golfer said.
However, the biggest inspiration for the young Suri was Tiger Woods. "I was probably five or six and at that time Tiger Woods was a big name so I got inspired and started playing golf."
His father, a tennis player in India, migrated to America in 70s and Julian was born in New York from where he moved to Florida at the age of 10. Although cricket runs in the family, Julian says he has never held a cricket bat in life. "There's been never cricket even in our backyard "I don't even watch it on television as love to watch basketball."
Julian's family comes from the southern parts of India but he uses a typically north Indian family name Suri. "It is a short form of Suryanarayan," he explains as his father Jagan Suri, who added that his father was also called Suri.
And, the young Suri (Julian) has had a remarkable year on the European Tour as from hovering outside the top 1,000 in the world Suri is now the in the top 100 list and playing among the best 60 on season-ending tournament of the Race to Dubai. "This is a special tournament, you can tell. Obviously only being 60 players, you kind of feel like you're with the best of the best out here," he said after hitting six birdies and two bogeys in his first round.
He could have got another birdie on the 18th after hitting an incredible 3-wood shot that brought him to 12 feet putt for a birdie. He missed and ended up with par on the final hole of the first round.
Suri, however, started off badly with a bogey but then hit three pairs of birdies. "To be honest it reminds me a lot of courses back home where I'm from. I think obviously the greens are the same, Bermuda greens and Bermuda fairways."
"And just the style, there's a lot of courses in Florida that are big golf courses, big greens, big slopes, and you've kind of got to manage those. You have a lot of kind of winding putts. It really reminds me of something back home," he said about the Greg Norman layout.
The sporting legacy of the Suri family will continue to stay stronger on the golf courses as Julian plans to continue playing on the European Tour next year but before that, he will go to Hong Kong for an Asian Tour event.