Shubhankar, Lahiri look to end title-drought
World No. 78 Denmark’s Hojgaard, a fourtime winner on the Tour, is the highest ranked in the field which includes 20 players from the Top200 list
The country’s richest and the flagship golf event – the $2.25 million Hero Indian Open – awaits a homegrown champion since 2017.
This week, 27 professionals and four amateurs will present the home challenge when the 57th edition of the premier event tees off at the DLF Golf and Country Club on Thursday. They will be up against tough overseas challengers, including 40 European Tour winners with close to 90 titles amongst them.
After S.S.P. Chowrasia defended the title in 2017, only three editions were held while thrice in succession the event had to be cancelled owing to the pandemic.
For the record, the top prize is $382,500, the runnerup gets $247,500 and
Shubhankar will carry the confidence of finishing tied-seventh in the Porsche Singapore Classic.
the thirdplaced will receive $141,750.
World No. 78 Denmark’s Ras Hojgaard, a fourtime winner on the Tour, is the highest ranked in the field that includes 20 players from the Top200 list. Though defending champion Marcel Siem misses the event following a recent hipsurgery, his German compatriot runnerup Yannik Paul is back.
Ranked 188, Shubhankar Sharma returns to his ‘home’ course as the best placed Indian. The pre
sence of seasoned Anirban Lahiri also gives hope. However, in the past, the ‘projected’ Indian favourites have seldom lived up to the preevent expectations. In all these years, only Ali Sher, Jyoti Randhawa and Chowrasia have proved different.
Going by the recent form, Shubhankar carries the confidence of finishing tiedseventh in the Porsche Singapore Classic last week.
Describing the DLF course as “one of the