Shubhankar’s Merit!

New Delhi, December 8

Shubhankar Sharma has became the youngest Indian golfer to win the Asian Tour Order of Merit after a groundbreaking year of achievements. He secured the honour even before the finish of the last two events of the 2018 season.

Sharma had led the Order of Merit race right from February this year. After finishing tied-6th at the Hong Kong Open, which was his 11th start in a row and 15th in 16 weeks from the Open de France in June-July, Sharma skipped the Queen’s Cup, Mauritius Open and the South African Open. South Africa’s Justin Harding mounted a challenge for the Order of Merit honours, but this week as Harding missed the cut, any chance of him overtaking Sharma ended.

Sharma, 22, became the fifth and the youngest Indian to win the Asian Tour Order of Merit. None of the previous Indian winners was below 30.

“The Asian Tour Order of Merit was something very significant for me, as were many of the other milestones, but with this I have followed in the footsteps of golfers like Jyoti Randhawa, Arjun Atwal, Jeev Milkha Singh and Anirban Lahiri, all of whom I look up to and who have been very encouraging to me,” said Sharma. — PTI