Dubai: Shubhankhar Sharma became the first Indian player to win European Tour Rookie of the Year, despite a horror show on the final round at the DP World Tour Championship on Sunday.
The 22-year-old from Jammu suffered a dreadful day at Jumeirah Golf Estate’s Earth Course, carding an eight-over par 80, which included eight bogeys, one triple-bogey and a solitary birdie to fall down the leaderboard and finish tied-21st at the season-ending event on Jumeirah Golf Estate’s Earth Course.
However, his nearest rivals in the race to be best in their first season on the Tour — Australian Lucas Herbert and Englishman Sam Horsfield — were left with too much to do to catch their rival over the weekend.
Sharma breathed a sigh of relief to finally get over the line but admitted he was not too worried about relinquishing his grasp on the title despite a terrible last day of the European Tour season. “You can only do it once, so I am so happy.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the Rookie title today, I was just thinking about making the easy putts,” said Sharma. “Obviously that didn’t happen. I kept making bad decisions but it’s just one bad day and it didn’t do too much harm.
“You can never be satisfied and have to keep pushing yourself, so next year will hopefully be better. You can only do it once, so I am so happy.”
Sharma also had another reason to cheer as he expressed his surprise at learning his Rookie title also earn him a spot the 2019 British Open.
“I didn’t know that, so that’s good. That’s a real positive. Bring on next year.”
Sharma’s season does not end here as he is aiming for the Asian Tour Order of Merit title, too, and he is looking to learn from his errors on Sunday’s final round in Dubai to help push for yet another accolade before the season is out.
“There will be no celebrating yet as I still have Asian Tour events to play. I will look at my mistakes and learn going into the next five weeks.”
There are still six events left on the Asian Tour, starting with the Hong Kong Open on Thursday and culminating in the Indonesian Masters in Jakarta in mid-December. Sharma holds a comfortable lead in the Asian standings from Korean Syang-hyun Park and England’s Matt Wallace.
