ViBENGALURU: S Chikkarangappa’s rise from a very humble background to playing on the Asian Tour is the stuff of legend. Being one of the leading players on the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), he went one step ahead and qualified for the Asian Tour in 2016 from Q-School.
He finished tied third in the Macao Open recently, joint sixth in the Indonesian Open and joint ninth in the Taiwan Masters before that. These performances helped the Bengalurean earn a card for the 2017 Asian Tour. He is currently 30th on the Tour’s Order of Merit.
“It’s a dream come true. I was looking forward to getting my full card because it is really hard. The guys who come from Q-School get to play only about eight events in a year and even if you finish in the top-10 in those you may still end up not getting a full card,” he said during the TAKE Open Golf Championship, where he is the joint leader with Chandigarh’s Sujjan Singh.
“It was really hard but I did a lot of work with Vijay (Divecha) sir before going into those three events. I did not play many PGTI events and gave more preference to the Asian Development Tour events because I wanted to get used to finishing well abroad,” he added.
There are a couple of events left on the 2016 Asian Tour and Chikkarangappa hopes to improve his performance. “There are a couple of events left. I will be playing much more aggressively. I think a win is very close,” he said.
Chikkarangappa has set his sights on greater success on the Asian Tour and that means he will not be a regular on the PGTI. “Next year, I might not even play two or three events. The biggest target now is to win on the Asian Tour and boost ranking points. I hope to finish in the top 15 in every event. The target is to enter the top 50 in the world rankings,” he stated.
vivekphadnis@newindianexpress.com
Scores (round 2 top 15): 136: S Chikkarangappa (69, 67), Sujjan Singh (66, 70); 137: Shubhankar Sharma (68, 69); 138: Abhijit Singh Chadha (66, 72), Anura Rohana (72, 66), Rahil Gangjee (68, 70), Jaibir Singh (69, 69); 139: Samarth Dwivedi (70, 69), Jyoti Randhawa (69, 70), Gaurav Pratap Singh (67, 72), Amardip Sinh Malik (68, 71), Chiragh Kumar (70, 69), Feroz Ali Mollah (69, 70); 140: Sanjay Kumar (71, 69); 141: Trishul Chinnappa (74, 67), Rudresh Sharma (72, 69).