At ‘second home,’ Shubhankar Sharma leads national challenge at Indian Open Golf tournament

In form, good shape, and playing at a course he describes as his ‘second home,’ India no. 1 Shubhankar Sharma will be vying for a first DP World Tour title since 2018 at the upcoming Hero Indian Open here starting on Thursday.

After a statement-making top 10 finish at the British Open (one of golf’s four Majors) last year, the Chandigarh-based 27-year-old has been on the up, and he was in the title conversations at Singapore Classic just last week before slipping to tied-seventh.

“Glad that I’m in form coming into my home event. This is our fifth major. And this is my second home. DLF is where I played so much golf from 2012 to 2016, which were my first few years as a professional,” Shubhankar told reporters here on Wednesday. “I’m feeling very confident this time, feeling better than I’ve ever felt coming into the Indian Open.”

The three-time DP World Tour winner elaborated on how he has grown as a golfer and being more relaxed is allowing him to access his best game. “I think everything feels really good now. I have become a lot better in pretty much every aspect from short game to putting to my ball striking,” he said. “Mentally I’ve just become more relaxed. I think after a while and I guess that’s the difference between the top players after a certain level that they manage their time in a very good way.”

Shubhankar had once led the field of this tournament, in 2018, and he believes he has learnt plenty of lessons since then, especially on playing this course, which he has seen since its inception and noticed its evolution. He delved into what makes the course a challenge.

“The rough has grown a lot, it’s much thicker and lush around the fairways. The course is tough, the greens are deceptive, visually it looks very intimidating, and the tee shot matters. Finding the fairway is very important, getting out of the rough can be a big challenge here. You have to hit the fairway first, you can’t be missing it.”

The 27-year-old said that home advantage may, then, come into play, but not much should be made of it, especially in a strong field with 20 players in the top 200, and 41 Tour-level title winners.

Shubhankar is the highest-ranked of the 31 Indians that will tee off on Thursday, but with Anirban Lahiri, whose ranking has plummeted since playing on the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour does not grant ranking points, will also be in the reckoning.

Like Shubhankar, 2015 Indian Open champion Lahiri qualified the home advantage that may come into play. “Definitely it’s an advantage (to play on the course regularly),” he told media on Tuesday. “But I would say the conditions this week (in a top tournament) are different to any other week on this course. So only if you have had tournament experience here, it can work in your favour because this course has its idiosyncrasies, and it can be intimidating under tournament pressure.”

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