By John Huggan
It is not a name many golf fans outside Asia are familiar with. Not yet anyway. But the time has surely come to take note of Shubhankar Sharma. Only 13 events into his European Tour career, the 21-year-old Indian now has two victories—one more than his number of missed cuts.

Just two months on from his first win at the Johannesburg Open, the man who is likely golf’s best-performing vegetarian added the Maybank Championship to his suddenly burgeoning resume.

He did it in some style, too. After surviving the halfway cut at the Saujana Golf and Country Club in Kuala Lumpur by a single stroke, Sharma shot 66-62 over the weekend to reach 21 under par and achieve a two-stroke edge over runner-up Jorge Campillo of Spain. Ryan Fox of New Zealand and Spaniard Pablo Larrazabal tied for third, three shots behind Sharma.   

The best of Sharma's winning round in 90 seconds.#MaybankChampionship pic.twitter.com/u81jDovhp0

— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) February 4, 2018

For his trouble, Sharma collected $500,000 and, by way of bonuses, clinched a place in the upcoming WGC-Mexico Championship as well as moving to the top of the Race to Dubai rankings. Heady stuff for a golfer who, only three weeks before his maiden victory, finished T-68 at the European Tour Qualifying School.

Sharma’s closing round on Sunday—four strokes better than anyone else in the field managed over the closing 18 holes—included 10 birdies, no dropped shots and set an early target none of the previously more prominent contenders came close to matching. Understandably, Sharma was more than excited—and talkative—at the close.

“That win in Johannesburg [which guaranteed him a spot in this year’s Open Championship at Carnoustie] helped me a lot today,” he said. “The way I played there gave me a lot of confidence. I was not under any pressure. I was a few groups ahead and no one was really watching me. The way I finished [five birdies in his last eight holes] was fantastic. Nothing went wrong.

“I played pretty solid and it wasn’t easy because it was windy. I kept pushing the whole day. I knew I had to make a lot birdies to catch the leaders. I made a lot of birdies on the front nine and just continued on the back. To be honest, I wasn’t thinking about the leader board. I wanted to set a target in my mind and try to achieve it.

“On the 13th, I knew I was somewhere near the leaders, but on 16 I knew I had a two-shot lead. I told myself if I can make two more birdies, that would give me a good chance to win. The last two months have changed my life. Even playing in the Q-school gave me confidence, although I didn’t get my card. And, having made the cut in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai, I have made a good start to this year. I really wanted to make the WGC-Mexico. I knew I needed a good week here. A lot of doors will open for me now.”

The post With two wins in 13 starts, meet the European Tour’s latest 21-year-old prodigy appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Huggan
Haydn Porteous missed the halfway cut in the 2016 D+D REAL Czech Masters, the start of a 16-tournament run on the European Tour in which the 23-year-old South African played on the weekend only twice. It was a startling sequence of bad form from a man who had won the Johannesburg Open just a few months earlier.

Now fast forward 12 months. In a season during which he has recorded only one top-10 finish—a T-6 at the Made in Denmark one week earlier—Porteous is now a two-time European Tour champion. With a final-round 69, Porteous reached 13 under par at the Albatross Golf Resort outside Prague to win the 2017 edition of the Czech Masters by two strokes over England’s Lee Slattery. Another Englishman, Tom Lewis, tied for third with Pontus Widegren of Sweden at 10 under.

“It’s been a really torrid time through the last eight, nine months, and I’ve really started doing the right things. And slowly but surely the golf has got a little bit better,” said Porteous, who won €166,660. “To get my second European Tour win under the belt just feels amazing. When you start playing on the European Tour, you start to lose yourself, you lose how you got out here in the first place, and to then find yourself again and do the things you do to normally get on the tour is key. It’s just one tournament at a time, one shot at a time and just make sure I do the right things and be professional in the way I do everything. I’m sure this evening’s probably not going to be the most professional moment of my life, but there’s nothing wrong with having a bit of celebration.”

Consolation for Slattery, albeit a slight one, comes from the fact that the former Russian Open champion moved to the top of the newly-minted European Ryder Cup qualifying table. Which may not mean much with 11 months to go before the last counting event, but it represented a considerably better performance than those turned in by some of the players likely to feature in captain Thomas Bjorn’s thinking over the next year or so.

Two years after claiming the Czech Masters title, Thomas Pieters, the Old World star of the last Ryder Cup at Hazeltine, finished 66th after a closing 83 that included nine dropped shots and quadruple bogey. Another member of the 2016 side, Matt Fitzpatrick, wasn’t much better on T-54. And the rising star of English golf, Jordan Smith, recently T-9 at the PGA Championship, pulled up T-60.

The post South African overcomes a year full of struggles to claim Czech Masters title appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.