Vijay Singh, the current world number one, will be playing the Skins here and Chopra will get a chance to have a go at the Indian-born Fijian, who he played in the US practice round.‘‘Playing with Vijay was fun. ‘‘Initially I was a little nervous but you get more comfortable when you play with them (top names) as they are all very nice guys,’’ the Indian-born Swede says.Playing Phil Mickelson was a tough ask, not so much because of the player’s reputation, but because of his popularity among the fans. While senior pros go out of their way to make rookies feel at home, the spectators could be a different cup of tea altogether.‘‘When I played with Phil, the galleries were so noisy. They were yelling his name; I heard my name once and his about six hundred times. And the one time I heard my name, it must have been Sam (wife Samantha) yelling. It is very difficult to not feel insignificant,’’ says Chopra of the time they crossed irons at the may 2004 Wachovia Championship.‘‘You kind of feel that you are in the way and the guys don’t really want you there. You are a nobody to them. Nothing prepares a player for the spectators and to make matters worse, Mickleson had just come off his first major victory at the Masters,’’ Chopra adds.For her part, Samantha says she was ‘‘lucky enough to to catch Danny play one shot over the shoulders of the fans’’.Chopra faced a similar situation with Spaniard Sergio Garcia, especially since they were playing in the second last group during the 2004 Byron Nelson meet. ‘‘Sergio played beautifully and the gallery was yelling for him all the way,’’ says Chopra, who decided that the only way to conquer the galleries was to get them to root for him.And then there was the big one. Tiger Woods. It was the third round of the 2004 US Open and ‘‘it was a different experience when I played with Tiger because I actually played better than him, especially on the front nine and they were yelling as hard for me if not harder, than they were for Tiger. So that was special,’’ Chopra says proudly.Chopra won over the crowd at the very first hole. While Woods’ tee shot veered to the left, Chopra sent his right down the middle of the fairway about fifty yards short of the green. ‘‘So the crowds took to me from that moment on and were yelling my name all the way down the fairway on the first,’’ he recalls.Samantha adds: ‘‘Danny was standing on the tee and I could barely see him, my heart was beating really fast. I thought all these people are here for Tiger and it was like a David versus Goliath situation. But then Daniel just started so well, and after that first shot, I thought he was fine.’’
