Shubhankar ready to rock on return

Bengaluru

Like for most professional golfers, Shubhankar Sharma’s primary love is the fairways and greens. That’s his bread and butter, and competition gives him the adrenaline he needs to keep going. So when the European Tour announced they would be resuming activities this month, he committed his participation without the blink of an eye.

“I’m really happy that I’m getting an opportunity to go out and play,” Shubhankar, who flew out on Tuesday morning to the United Kingdom to compete in five events, told DH. “We don’t know when a vaccine would come and I can’t just keep sitting at home. It was a fairly easy decision for me. Dad and I spoke about it and it was a common decision.

"As a professional golfer, I am so used to travelling and constantly playing. The golf course is my happy place. Golf is a relatively safe sport. It’s a total non-contact sport. Can understand other sports, there are problems there. I was always sure I am going out to play, it was just a matter of time.

“Things are settling down now and the UK is past its peak too. So wasn’t a hard decision as I’m playing all events in the UK. Competing is in my nature, so I really want to go and compete and start playing well. It just makes me happy going and playing all these events. Like I said, it’s my happy place. I just want to go and play and have fun,” added Shubhankar.

A year ago at the same time two-time European tour winner Shubhankar, who turned 24 this month, was a hot property in India golf. He was raking up one strong performance after another and seemed a definite contender for an Olympic spot. However, his game hit the bunkers from the second half of 2019 that has seen his world ranking slip to 311 from a career-high 64 in 2018. He had two top-7 shows in the second half of 2019 but returns in other events were well below the high standards that he’d set for himself. The rut continued this year too, the pro misfiring badly in all five events.

The pandemic ended up becoming a blessing in disguise for the youngster. He used the lockdown enforced break to iron out his chinks and now he can’t wait to turn his game around. “The start of the year wasn’t great but it’s fine, golf is like that. You will have ups and downs. So I wasn’t really perturbed by that. Personally, I didn’t feel there was something really lacking in my game. It was just that I wasn’t putting in four rounds together, I was playing one good round and one bad round. It was all not coming together.

“This lockdown has been a blessing in disguise. It gave a lot of time to think, analyse my game and work on the aspects that weren’t up to the mark. In that way I am pretty happy. It’s come around pretty well. I’ve been working with my coaches and implementing their feedback. The game actually feels nice.

“Competition golf obviously is very tough but I’ve done this before. It’s not something new to me. It will take some time for me to get adjusted but personally I feel as the first round starts on Thursday, I think I’ll be in the zone. Once that happens, the game will come like second nature,” added Shubhankar who will be travelling with coach Gurbaz Mann, the former pro doubling up as his caddie.