By IANS
New Delhi : Indian golf found a new star Sunday with Shiv Shankar Prasad Chowrasia, winning the inaugural $2.5 million EMAAR-MGF Indian Masters at the Delhi Golf Club (DGC).
Chowrasia shot a flawless five under 67 on the final round and won the tournament, which was co-sanction by European Tour and Asian Tour, by two strokes. He has now qualified to play in the European Tour for the next three years.
“Normally I don’t shoot too well in the final round, but whenever I’ve won a tournament I’ve always shot a brilliant last round, usually five-six-under, and I think I played very good golf this also,” said Chowrasia, who became the third Indian after Atwal and Jeev Milkha Singh to win a European Tour event.
On qualifying for the European Tour, he said: “I will be playing both in Asia and in Europe, but I will probably be playing more in Europe. First I want to do well on the European Tour and then my target is to get on to the US Tour.”
The 29-year-old Chowrasia, who honed his skill at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC), also etched his name to the history book by becoming the first Indian to win a European Tour event at home. He also pocketed the richest prize purse in the history of Indian sports a whopping Rs.16 million.
He started the day brilliantly with four birdies on the front nine and played it clean on the back nine with just a birdie and pars on the rest eight.
“I wasn’t thinking too much about the win and all of the scoring out on the front nine because there was still half a round left. In the second half, all I wanted to do was to score pars and to keep it going. I had a birdie on the first and then on the third I had a chip-in and another birdie at the fourth, and at that point I felt I could go way ahead and I felt I would go a long distance from here,” he said.
On the 18th, where he had a bogey on the third day, he looked calm and with a clean putt he sealed the title. “I was quite tense when I came to the 18th, but more than coming on to the green I was more tense at the tee because there were a few people walking across. And I took my time on the tee shot, and after the tee shot I was much more relieved and I was much more relaxed.”