S.S.P. Chawrasia cruises to successful Indian Open defense
S.S.P. Chawrasia successfully defended his Hero Indian Open title on Sunday, coasting to a seven-shot win at the challenging and controversial DLF Golf and Country Club.
The home-country hero finished at 10-under 278, beating Gavin Green with ease as just seven players finished under par for the week. Since winning last year’s Indian Open in dramatic fashion at Delhi Golf and Country Club, Chawrasia hadn’t posted a single top-25 finish on the European Tour, with his best effort at T-27 at last May’s BMW PGA Championship in England. So far in 2017, Chawrasia’s best finish was T-35 at the World Super 6 Perth, where he missed the match-play portion of the event.
Nonetheless, it’s hard to say that no one saw Chawrasia’s Indian success coming. He now has four European Tour wins. All have come in Delhi, with two in the Indian Masters and two in the Indian Open. Chawrasia hopes winning on this Gary Player design will propel him to more success of Indian soil.
“I learned many things this week and hopefully I can play better in Europe,” he said. “That’s my target next, I have to win in Europe.”
Given the difficult of the course, that may well prove right. With lots of wilderness areas and large rock formations serving as hazards, players had tremendous difficulty keeping the ball in play. No player in the field was exempt from at least one big number on the scorecard, but, as Chawrasia recognized, he managed to minimize the damage from his poor shots.
“This is probably my best win of my career as it was a really tough course,” he said. “This week, I made less mistakes and others made more mistakes.”
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
