Shubhankar Sharma on a fast track from India

Sport

Shubhankar Sharma on a fast track from India

2018-03-02 10:03 Last Updated At：14:21

Each month brings a bigger stage and a new level of pedigree for Shubhankar Sharma.

He arrived in Mexico City for his first World Golf Championship at No. 75 in the world, making Sharma, at age 21, the highest-ranked player from India.

That's not what made him eligible to compete against Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth and the world's best players for a $10 million prize fund. Sharma is the only two-time winner on the European Tour this season. He is leading the Race to Dubai.

And he hopes he is just getting started.

"I don't want to dwell on the past," Sharma said. "I still have so many things to do to get to the PGA Tour, and that's what I want to do."

And to think Sharma might never have seen a golf course except for the most unusual coincidence.

Sharma and Anirban Lahiri — the player he replaced as India's No. 1 — are both Army brats. Retired Col. Mohan Sharma was stationed at the same post as Lahiri's father, a gynecologist when Sharma's younger sister was born.

"He was the doctor for my wife, and my wife was going through a tough time with blood pressure," Mohan Sharma said. "He's very kind and a fine doctor. His son was a top junior at that time. My son was turning 7. And he said to me, 'This is a great game. You'll find that if you take him to golf.'"

The Army colonel and his son went to the golf course together for the first time.

"No one in our family played golf," Shubhankar Sharma said. "He bought a set and I would tag along with him on the course. After a month or two, he got me a cut-down 2-iron. That was my first club."

Sharma didn't hit it very high, but he was straight. And he loved it. There was one course in Chandigarh, the northern city where India's first top player, Jeev Milkha Singh, was raised. Sharma was like many Indian kids. He played cricket after school. He played soccer.

"But golf was different," he said. "That's what appealed to me. When I was 12 or 13, I knew I was going to be a professional golfer."

Mohan retired from the Army to look after his son, who turned pro when he was 16. Turning pro so early kept him from wearing his country's colors at the World Amateur Team Championship and other amateur competitions. But it made him determined to succeed.

"I always wanted to set the bar high," he said. "I thought setting the bar high helped me push myself. And it's the only thing that pushes me every day."

Singh saw the potential when he watched Sharma on the practice range at home. He was not surprised that Sharma has reached a world stage like the Mexico Championship, which starts Thursday at Chapultepec Golf Club.

"I am proud of the boy the way he has handled himself," Singh said Tuesday evening from India. "That's the most important thing when you see a young kid, and the conduct of this kid is amazing. I think he's got everything. He's humble. He knows you have to maintain your game and have the drive to keep it going. He's got a very good swing. But he's got a very strong mind. He's going to go far."

Sharma is not long and powerful off the tee, like so many young players. But he can score.

Two years ago, Sharma had two tournaments left to earn enough money for a full card on the Asian Tour. In the final round of the Manila Masters, he shot 62 to tie for fourth and lock up his card. At the end of his first full season, he shot 61 in the second round of the Joburg Open and went on to win. That was co-sanctioned with the European Tour, giving Sharma membership on two tours.

And then last month in Kuala Lumpur, Sharma again closed with a 62 to win the Malaysian Open and shoot to the top of Europe's money list.

"He's got such a great temperament," Lahiri said. "I played with him last year at the Malaysian Open. He got off to a rough start, hung in there and managed to finish in the top 10. I was really impressed with his grit. He's got a really stable head on his shoulders. And the best thing about his golf is he can really go low. He's not scared to make birdies in bunches."

They have a family connection through the birth of Sharma's sister, and Lahiri sees another parallel. Success in golf can come quickly. Three years ago, Lahiri won the Malaysian Open and the Hero Indian Open — both European Tour events — in a span of three weeks and rose to No. 34 in the world. Just like that, he was in World Golf Championships and heading to Augusta National for the Masters.

Later that year, he became the first Indian to play in the Presidents Cup.

"He's a really good kid. He comes from a humble background," Lahiri said. "He's kind of like myself — Army brats. We didn't have all the luxurious equipment or facilities. We're grinders."

Sharma already has a clear vision of where he wants to be, thanks to a road trip like none other in 2015.

On the range with him in Mexico was Gurbaaz Mann, who played sparingly at Arizona State as a walk-on and worked on golf equipment in Ohio before he needed to return home to India after his father died. He now is promoting the Indo-American PGA to help more Indian kids make it to America. Mann is caddying for him this week.

Sharma was among 10 players who flew to New York in the summer of 2015. They rented a 15-seat van, stacked the clubs in the back and off they went. Mann used social media to arrange pro-ams to raise money for the trip, and they had enough left over to send one of the players to Q-school in America.

They traveled south to Houston, northwest to Seattle, down the coast to San Francisco, over to Iowa, up to Cleveland. The trip covered some 12,500 miles over 45 days. If nothing else, Mann says it was a chance to see America and the ultimate destination for an aspiring golfer.

"There must be Americans who haven't done what we have," Sharma said with a laugh.

And now he's in Mexico City, hopeful of a big week that could lead to greater moments. The top 64 in the world qualify for the Dell Match Play in three weeks. He is trying to get into the top 50 over the next month to qualify for the Masters.

"Surely, this is the biggest event I've ever played," he said. "There will be a lot of learning."

India starts voting in the world's largest election as Modi seeks a third term as prime minister

2024-04-19 10:46 Last Updated At：11:00

NEW DELHI (AP) — Millions of Indians began voting Friday in a six-week election that's a referendum on Narendra Modi, the populist prime minister who has championed an assertive brand of Hindu nationalist politics and is seeking a rare third term as the country's leader.

The voters began queuing up at polling stations hours before they were allowed in at 7 a.m. in the first 21 states to hold votes, from the Himalayan mountains to the tropical Andaman Islands. Nearly 970 million voters — more than 10% of the world’s population — will elect 543 members to the lower house of Parliament for five years during the staggered elections that run until June 1. The votes will be counted on June 4.

One voter said she came early to avoid the summer heat later in the day.

Prime Minister Modi urged people to vote in record numbers. “I particularly call upon the young and first-time voters to vote in large numbers. After all, every vote counts and every voice matters!” he said in a message on the social media platform X.

This election is seen as one of the most consequential in India’s history and will test the limits of Modi's political dominance.

If Modi wins, he’ll be only the second Indian leader to retain power for a third term, after Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister.

Most polls predict a win for Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, who are up against a broad opposition alliance led by the Indian National Congress and powerful regional parties.

It's not clear who will lead India if the opposition alliance, called INDIA, wins the election. Its more than 20 parties have not put forward a candidate, saying they will choose one after the results are known.

The BJP is facing the toughest challenge in southern Tamil Nadu state with 39 seats where the voting is being held on Friday. The BJP drew a blank in 2019 and won one seat in the 2014 elections with the region dominated by two powerful regional groups, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

Modi focussed on the state this time and visited it more than a dozen times, holding several rallies and roadshows.

P. Chidambaram, an opposition Congress party leader and the country's former finance minister, said after voting in Tamil Nadu state that people would not vote for the BJP in the state as "It is imposing one language, one culture, one system and one kind of food.”

The voting also is taking place in the northeastern state of Manipur that was ravaged by a near-civil war for a year caused by fighting between the majority Meitei and tribal Kuki-Zo people. Mobs have rampaged through villages and torched houses.

The election authority has set up voting stations for nearly 320 relief camps where more than 59,000 men, women and children are living. The state stands divided between a valley controlled by the Meiteis and the Kuki-dominated hills.

More than 150 people were killed and over 60,000 displaced. The voting for two seats will be completed on April 26.

In the 2019 elections, the BJP and its allies had won 39 of 102 seats where the voting is taking place on Friday. These include Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and West Bengal states.

The election comes after a decade of Modi's leadership, during which the BJP has consolidated power through a combination of Hindu-first politics and economic development.

Modi has ratcheted up Hindu nationalist rhetoric on the campaign trail, and has sought to present himself as a global leader. His ministers tout him as the steward of a surging India, while his supporters celebrate his campaign promise to make India a developed nation by 2047, when it marks 100 years of independence.

But while India’s economy is among the world’s fastest-growing, many of its people face growing economic distress. The opposition alliance is hoping to tap into this, seeking to galvanize voters on issues like high unemployment, inflation, corruption and low agricultural prices that have driven two years of farmers' protests.

Critics warn that Modi has turned increasingly illiberal and that he could use a third term to undermine India's democracy. His Hindu nationalist politics, they argue, has bred intolerance and threatens the country's secular roots.

The alliance has promised to arrest the democratic slide it says India has witnessed under Modi’s rule. They accuse Modi of sidelining elected ministers in favor of trusted bureaucrats and using tax authorities and the police to harass critics and opposition parties.

“Modi has a very authoritarian mindset. He doesn't believe in democracy. He doesn't believe in Parliamentarianism,” said Christophe Jaffrelot, who has written about Modi and the Hindu right.

Modi insists that India's commitment to democracy is unchanged. He told a Summit for Democracy meeting in New Delhi in March that '"India is not only fulfilling the aspirations of its 1.4 billion people, but is also providing hope to the world that democracy delivers and empowers.’’

The Indian leader enjoys vast popularity among India's 1.4 billion people. His BJP dominates in Hindi-speaking northern and central parts of India, and is now trying to gain a foothold in the east and south to capture a two-thirds majority. Modi and other BJP candidates have repeatedly vowed to take at least 400 seats.

The party hopes for a landslide win powered by its popular welfare programs, which it says have improved access to clean toilets, health care and cooking gas, as well as providing free grain to the poor. Moves like the construction of a controversial temple to Ram on the site of a demolished mosque, and the scrapping of the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir's former autonomy, may resonate with supporters who hail him as the champion of the Hindu majority.

“Any party that comes back for a third term, and with a brute majority, is a scary prospect for democracy,” said Arati Jerath, a political commentator.

Modi's two terms have seen civil liberties in India come under attack and it implementing what critics say are discriminatory policies. Peaceful protests have been crushed with force. A once free and diverse press is threatened, violence is on the rise against the Muslim minority, and government agencies have arrested opposition politicians in alleged corruption cases.

The BJP has denied its policies are discriminatory and says its work benefits all Indians.

Shubhankar Sharma on a fast track from India

Sport

Shubhankar Sharma on a fast track from India

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