First under-par round for Shubhankar, Indians make 50th major appearance

Shubhankar Sharma can take a sigh of relief as he has now finally posted his first under-par round in 9 attempts at a major. Previously he missed cuts at The Masters with rounds of 77 and 74, the first major where he received an invitation after his exceptional T-9 finish at the WGC-Mexico Championship in March, earlier this year. At the event, he led the opening two rounds and later dropped down with his rounds of 69 and 74 finishing for a T-9 at 10-under-274.

RELATED: Sharma accepts The Masters Invite

Later at the US Open, Sharma missed the cut with his rounds of 74 and 76 for a total of 10-over-150, still improving his score by a shot as compared from The Masters. The British Open came with hopes for the Indian as it became the first major where he successfully made the cut, just prior to a day before his 22nd birthday, with a birdie on the final hole, he needed a bird or a better shot to survive for the weekend. His qualifying rounds saw him posting 73 and 71, taking his score at the majors to 144, six better than his previous finish at the US Open.

Now at the US$ 10,500,000 PGA Championship at Bellerive Golf Course with his round of 1-under-69, he surely is going to make the cut once again at a major and will be bettering his 36-hole qualifying round scores too.

RELATED: Sharma posts final hole birdie to make the cut 

Sharma now stands T-33 at a shot better than the god of the game Tiger Woods, now that’s some achievement, am not saying he is the first one to do it, but its surely huge for the boy who has seen him playing on TV since childhood and being in that league, is something to boast about.

All in all the Chandigarh lad has kept improving over the period of time at the majors, yes experience does play a crucial role and I can’t even explain how he must have felt failing to make cuts at The Masters and the US Open.

Lahiri T-48, and Indians at the Majors

India’s Anirban Lahiri stood T-48 with his round of 70 consisting four birdies and an equal number of bogeys. With this appearance, Lahiri surpassed Jeev Milkha Singh with most majors appearances to 15, and what’s even more interesting it made the 50th combined appearance of 8 Indian golfers who have played at least in one major. Others include Jyoti Randhawa, Arjun Atwal, and Shiv Kapur each making  5 majors appearances, Gaganjeet Bhullar and Gaurav Ghei making one major appearance, Jeev Milkha Singh played in 14 majors and Shubhankar is playing his fourth major, the youngest Indian to play all the majors in a year.