Shubhankar Sharma

At age 21, Sharma joins the elite under-25-year-old superstars of golf with his excellent performances, winning twice on the European Tour since mid-December and his T-9th finish in the WGC-Mexico Championship after leading going into the final round. Since turning professional in 2013 at age 16, Sharma has played most of his golf on the Asian Tour. He comes from a country of 1.3 billion people, the second most populous country in the world. Despite this statistic, there are fewer than 50 golf courses in the country, and great Indian players are rare. Some of the bigger names include Arjun Atwal, who won the 2010 Wyndham Championship; Jyoti Randhawa, who became the first Indian to win the Asian Tour order of merit in 2002; Jeev Milkha Singh and Anirban Lahiri, who both won twice on the European Tour and have seven Asian Tour wins. In 2015, Lahiri became the first and only Indian to play on the Presidents Cup team. He returned and played on the team in 2017.
We mention Lahiri because he had, or should we say Lahiri's father had, an essential role in Sharma taking up golf. Both Sharma and Lahiri's fathers were members of the Indian army. They were stationed together, and Lahiri's father was the doctor who delivered Sharma's younger sister Vandini. In getting to know the family, Dr. Lahiri told Col. Sharma to take his son to the golf course. No one in Sharma's family had ever played golf, but six-year-old Sharma took to the game quickly and became the country's best amateur by 2013. He was the No. 1 junior, and after winning the All India Amateur Championship in 2013, he turned professional at age 16. Leaving school early is something that doesn't happen in the Sharma family. His mother, Neena, has a Ph.D. in yoga and alternative healing, while his sister Vandini was a published fiction and non-fiction writer at 16 and covered the Masters for the Associated Press.
Sharma played first on the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) and had one win and six top-10s in his first season on that tour. He won the PGTI Cochin Masters, making him the youngest winner on that tour at age 17. At the same time, he jumped to playing on the Asian Development Tour. He posted his best finish on the Asian Tour with a runner-up result at the Solutions India Masters (which was joint-sanctioned by ADT and PGTI), losing in a playoff to S Chikkarangappa. He also finished T-4th in the Asian Tour's Panasonic Open India in 2015.
2016 Notes: Shubhankar earned his Asian Tour card after coming through the Qualifying School. He enjoyed two top-5 finishes in his rookie season on the Asian Tour - 3rd at the Bashundhara Bangladesh Open and T-4th at the Resorts World Manila Masters - thus finishing inside the top-60 of the Asian Tour order of merit and earning an exemption for 2017. He also won three times on the PGTI Tour - PGTI Players Championship, Kolkata Classic, and TATA Open.
2017 Notes: The year was good for Sharma as he finished in the top-11 in four starts, with the best being a T-4th at the Bashundhara Bangladesh Open. After that, he struggled in his next 13 events, missing six cuts. His best finish was a T-18th at the Panasonic Open India, which seemed to get his game in gear. Three weeks later, at the UBS Hong Kong Open, which is co-sanctioned by the European and Asian Tours, Sharma carded a final-round 67 that moved him into a T-10th and advanced him to 454th on the Official World Golf Ranking. The next week, he finished T-27th in the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open and then played another European and Asian Tour co-sanctioned event, the Joburg Open. After a second-round 61 to move him into contention, Sharma showed nerves of steel as he shot a third-round 65 and then endured a rain delay that caused the event to finish on Monday. He showed no signs of pressure as he birdied three holes on the front nine and made par on his last nine holes to seal a three-shot win. The victory also earned him an exemption to the European Tour and a place in the British Open. He ended the year T-11th in the Indonesian Masters to finish 7th on the Asian Tour order of merit and 202nd in the Official World Golf Ranking.
2018 Notes: Sharma's goal was to play on the European Tour. At the Abu Dhabi Championship, he finished T-48th, and the next week finished T-61st at the Dubai Desert Classic. He traveled to Malaysia to play in the Maybank Championship and with a closing round of 62, won for the second time on the European Tour. The victory made him the third Indian, after Jeev Milkha Singh and Anirban Lahiri, to win two European Tour events in the same season. More importantly, the win boosted him to lead the Race to Dubai rankings and climb to 72nd in the world ranking. It also led to claiming a spot at the WGC-Mexico Championship. He played solidly there for 54 holes, taking a two-shot lead into the final round, but then struggled, shooting a 74 to drop him into a T-9th. He showed the world a lot of promise, but his bogeys on 17 and 18 could be costly for Sharma. He moved up to 66th in the world rankings and was on the bubble for a spot in the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship, which takes the top-64 in the rankings. He went from Mexico to India to play the Hero Indian Open. On the way, he got the news that Augusta National granted him an invitation to play in the Masters, where he became the fourth Indian player to compete in the major, following Jeev Milkha Singh, Arjun Atwal, and Anirban Lahiri. At the Hero Indian Open, he was the third-round co-leader with Matt Wallace, but again had a rough final round to shoot 75 and drop to T-7th. With that finish, he climbed to 64th in the world ranking, getting into the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship, but he lost all three of his matches. In his first major at the Masters, he missed the cut, and also missed the cut at the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship. Sharma played in 10 Asian Tour events and won the Asian Tour Order of Merit title.
2019 Notes: Was T-10th at the CIMB Classic, and T-2nd at the PGTI Players Championship on the Professional Golf Tour of India. Played in 23 European Tour events making 16 cuts with three top-ten finishes. He was 65th in the Race to Dubai. Finished T-6th at the Hong Kong Open, T-7th at the Italian Open and Turkish Airlines Open.
2020 Notes: Played in 22 European Tour events making nine cuts. Was 139th on the Race to Dubai. Best finish T-14th at the Aphrodite Hills Cyprus Open.
2021 Notes: Played in 28 DP World Tour events making 17 cuts with four top-ten finishes. Was 68th in the Race to Dubai. Best finish T-3rd at the ACCIONA Open de Espana.
2022 Notes: Played in 23 DP World Tour events making nine cuts with two top-ten finishes. Was 29th in the Race to Dubai. Was T-2nd at the Abu Dhabi Championship, one shot back of winner Thomas Pieters. Was 3rd at the Nedbank Golf Challenge two shots back of winner Tommy Fleetwood. Ended his season with a T-44th finish at the DP World Tour Championship.
2023 Notes: T-7th at the Abu Dhabi Championship.