If anything, the Joburg Open was very inconveniently scheduled for most Asian Tour players. It involved logging thousand of miles of travel from Hong Kong to Mauritius to Joburg, and then back to this week's important season-ending championship in Jakarta. No wonder many of the top Asian stars, including several Indians, decided to skip it.
One man did not mind making that long trek. Shubhankar Sharma. It helps when you are just 21, but the Chandigarh-based golfer has always believed in going the extra mile for the sport he loves.
The reward for that perseverance, though, has been immense. Sharma played dream golf to emerge as only the fifth Indian champion on the highly competitive European Tour with a remarkable score of 23-under par. It also marked the first Indian win in the African continent.
The Joburg Open is one of the toughest tournaments on the European Tour (one of the sanctioning bodies, along with the Asian and South African Sunshine Tours) - as many as 240 players constitute the field (the largest on any Tour), which in turn means that the tournament is staged on two golf courses.
The odds were stacked against Sharma. No Indian has ever won in South Africa, a place where the domestic golfers rule the roost. It was also the first time ever that he had visited the country, let alone play there previously. Most importantly, like other golf courses there, Randpark GC also has kikuyu grass for fairways and roughs. That grass is a completely different beast to what is generally used in India or Asia, where he has played most of his golf. It requires a big adjustment for the players, especially when chipping and hitting iron shots.
But nothing ruffled Sharma. After starting with a three-under par 69, he blitzed the course the next day with a 10-under par 61, the lowest recorded round on the Asian Tour this year. Following up such a low round is always difficult, but Sharma did - that too with a bogey-free 65. And he continued in rock-solid fashion as he closed with another bogey-free 69 in a round that was severely disrupted by a thunderstorm and spilled over to Monday.
Sharma's win elevates him from 482nd place in the Official World Golf Rankings to 225, and to No.2 in the European Tour's Order of Merit. More importantly, it secures him a place in the 2018 Open Championship at Carnoustie and full playing privileges on the European Tour.
Champion. :trophy:@shubhankargolf wins the #JoburgOpen2018 with a score of 23 under par. pic.twitter.com/LJCYu3Gnou
- The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) 11 December 2017
The irony of winning on the European Tour and securing his card will not be lost on him. Last month, he was the sole Indian to make the trip to Tarragona in Spain to take part in the grueling six-round final stage of the qualifying school. He fell short there, finishing 69th and getting only a conditional status. Now, he is in a position to pick and choose any event he wishes to play as a champion.
Soft-spoken and respectful to a fault, he is ultra competitive and possesses a never-say-die attitude when on the golf course. Perhaps the army background of his father, the ever-smiling Col Mohan Sharma, helps. Expect Shubhankar to take off his hat and bow his head to his seniors, but blink his eyes when in the heat of a battle? Forget it.
There were always signs of Sharma becoming the next superstar of Indian golf. Now a member of Chandigarh Golf Club after travelling over the country as a child because of his father's job, he graduated to the pro ranks after having the field in just about every tournament in his junior and amateur days. That included winning the prestigious All India Amateurs title at age 17 in 2013. On turning pro, he racked up five wins on the domestic PGTI Tour, and always looked capable of making his international breakthrough in the past couple of years.
I usually ask established Indian pros like Jeev Milkha Singh, Arjun Atwal, Anirban Lahiri, SSP Chawrasia and Shiv Kapur to name the young Indian star who has impressed them the most. Of late, one name always came up in that list - Sharma.
And in Joburg last week, he showed everyone just why he is so highly regarded.
Sharma handled everything with aplomb and a calmness that defies his age. That is another trait that is surely going to take him far in his career. For someone so young, he has the maturity of a veteran.
(Joy Chakravarty is a Dubai-based golf journalist who has followed Indian golf for the past 22 years. He has covered 16 majors and over 100 international tournaments)