The DP World India Championship concluded with an international triumph a star-studded field underscoring the gap between India's best golfers and the elite of the DP World Tour. Tommy Fleetwood the eventual winner prevailed in a tournament that offered a massive four million dollar purse an unprecedented sum for an Indian golf event. The presence of world number two Rory McIlroy and world number five Fleetwood elevated the tournament's stature significantly yet it also magnified the struggles of the Indian contingent.
The winning score of twenty-two under par and a cut line set at two under suggested that the Delhi Golf Club course while challenging was not exceptionally tough. Fleetwood dropped just four shots across the four days demonstrating a level of discipline and ruthless scoring that the Indian players could not consistently match. This outcome served as a stark reminder of the long road ahead for Indian golf when compared to their international counterparts.
Of the twenty-six Indians who entered the event only five managed to make the cut. The seasoned Shiv Kapur finished as the best Indian player tied for thirty-second place with a nine under par aggregate score of 279 a respectable showing but far from contention. Dhruv Sheoran was the next best Indian finisher tied for thirty-sixth at eight under par 280. Former European Tour winners Shubhankar Sharma and Anirban Lahiri both finished tied for fifty-sixth at three under par 285 while Abhinav Lohan was tied for sixty-third at one under par 287.
The disparity in performance highlighted the rigorous standards of the DP World Tour. Shubhankar Sharma a figure once lauded as the next great Indian golf hope has struggled for form missing twenty-one cuts out of twenty-eight events this season. The difference in course conditions and the constant need to adapt to the varied challenges of the global tour proved difficult for him. Sharma along with Veer Ahlawat are the only two Indians to hold full season cards on the DP World Tour but Ahlawat missed the cut in this event.
Reflecting on the challenges Sharma noted the difficulty of consistently adjusting to different courses and conditions a factor that requires heightened focus and commitment. The last time an Indian tasted victory on the European Tour was in August 2018 when Gaganjeet Bhullar claimed the Fiji International. Earlier that year Khalin Joshi had won the Panasonic Open in New Delhi suggesting that winning on home soil is not an impossible feat. However recent successes have been few and far between.
The tournament was a co-sanctioned event with the Professional Golf Tour of India PGTI which provided opportunities for several Indian players to participate. Shiv Kapur a member of the International Golf Partners League IGPL team was a beneficiary of a PGTI invite and proved to be the top performer among the home players. In the run-up to the championship Rory McIlroy himself had stressed the importance of modeling one's game on the precision required by the Lodhi course a style famously mastered by players like Shiv Chawrasia.
For Indian golf to make a more consistent mark on the world stage players need to find a way to translate their domestic form and knowledge of home courses into sustained success on the tougher global circuit. The DP World India Championship while a spectacular event in terms of its field and prize money also delivered a humbling truth the best Indians still have a significant distance to go to compete regularly at the highest level of the sport.
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