India’s Shubhankar Sharma is the new Asia No. 1 Twentytwo-year-old Shubhankar emerged as the 2018 Asian Tour Order of Merit champion following a dream season in Asia which saw him achieve many milestones and rewrite many Indian records.
The Chandigarh-based Sharma now becomes the fifth and youngest Indian to top the Asian Tour money list in a particular season. He thus joins the exclusive club of Indians who have achieved the feat in the past – Jyoti Randhawa (2002), Arjun Atwal (2003), Jeev Milkha Singh (2006 and 2008) and Anirban Lahiri (2015).
Anirban Lahiri held the previous record of being the youngest Indian to be crowned Asia No. 1 when he bagged the honour in 2015.
It’s been a meteoric rise for Shubhankar over the last two seasons. He played his first full season in Asia in 2016 when he finished 55th in the money list and retained his card for 2017.
Then his breakthrough win at the 2017 Joburg Open saw him finish an impressive seventh on the Asian Tour money list for 2017. Sharma carried his winning momentum over to the new season and clinched his second Asian Tour title at the Maybank Championship in Malaysia.