2012 European Tour - Jeev and SSPC

[ankit1407]

wow what a put from Jeev to win it in the play offs...Way to go Jeev

and he gets the last slot in the open championship....

[PKBasu]

Congrats to Jeev for winning the Scottish Open!

He had to go into a play-off against Molinari, but managed to win that to lift the title!

[jayakris]

Great job, Jeev!!! Jay

[arjun2761]

Great win by Jeev! In addition to grabbing the last spot in the Open championship, he moves back into the top-100 of the world golf rankings and gets a 3 year exemption into the European tour.

[Sin Hombre]

Great win by Jeev! In addition to grabbing the last spot in the Open championship, he moves back into the top-100 of the world golf rankings and gets a 3 year exemption into the European tour.

Fantastic from Jeev.

Having pretty much grown up with Jeev breaking through for Indian golf, I have always been a fan of him. Quite sad to see though almost 2 decades in, he is still the leading light of Indian golf.

Heard him talking about the next Olympics recently, and I hope he can make it to Brazil.

[PKBasu]

In all fairness, while Jeev does remain the leading light of Indian golf (and the man who has made the biggest breakthroughs almost everywhere), Arjun Atwal has been the breakthrough man on the (US) PGA tour (arguably the toughest tour in golf) -- both by becoming the first Indian with a regular PGA tour card, and the first to win a PGA tour tournament. Arjun has also done some notable things on the EPGA (especially winning several EPGA/APGA joint events in Singapore and Malaysia).

[Prem]

Congrats Jeev on a remarkable come from back win.
Starting the day 5 shots back, Jeev went on to win.
Its the best come from behind (5 strokes) for 2012 on EPGA.
Getting the Open ticket was icing on the cake.
Having won here on similar links course, Jeev should be confident and one of the favourites at the Open.
Welcome back Jeev into the top 100 again!!!

[suresh]

Congratulations to Jeev. It has been a down period for Indian golfers with the fading away of Randhawa and Arjun. The younger golfers like SSP and Shiv Kapur have not been performing well on the European tour. I hope this win inspires others as well and helps put Indian golf back on

[PKBasu]

SSP Chowrasia finished T11, so it was a good tournament for Indians.

Jeev's persistence and ability to rise to the occasion are really quite extraordinary. Except for getting a regular PGA tour card, he has been the pioneer of almost every important step forward for Indian golfers. He has a top-10 finish in a major (T9 in the 2008 US PGA championships), and was (IIRC) the first Indian to make the cut at the Masters (2007, going one better to finish T25 in 2008) and the US Open (way back in 2002). The only major where he has never made the cut (and, as far as I know, no Indian has...) is the British Open. He can correct that this week...

[Prem]

Except for getting a regular PGA tour card, he has been the pioneer of almost every important step forward for Indian golfers....

PKB- I think Jeev definitely had a PGA Tour card in 2010 and probably in 2009 too.
But he could not play the full year due to injury setbacks.
He got his card based on earning more than the 125th ranked player on PGA money list, as a non member.

With this win, Jeev moves to 87th in World rankings.
Good luck Jeev and Anirban for The Open this week....

[PKBasu]

Yes, I know he had a card (or near-full eligibility) for the PGA for a couple of years. But he wasn't the Indian pioneer (first one) on the PGA tour -- which was Atwal. On the JPGA and EPGA, Jeev was the pioneering Indian, without doubt.

[Prem]

Agree.....

SSP Chowrasia had an excellent tournament too.
But for average last round - even par, he would have been in contention too.
Still he finished ahead of Mickekson, Donald, Harrington, Els etc.

It was a strong field and that makes Jeev's win more sweet.

[jaydeep]

Turned great week for Jeev, much required title win ... With that grabbing last available spot for Open championship was icing on the cake ... Congrats Jeev.

Singh Hits Winning Note

“I was just enjoying a cup of tea and some chocolate cake and watching it on television, and suddenly got excited,” said Singh - who was three shots behind Warren when he signed his card."

“I think God has been kind, and I think the field came back and I put myself in a to go in for a play-off - I'm very fortunate."

“It has been really tough - frustrating than anything else. You feel like your game is coming back and another injury creeps up, but I just stuck myself in there and said that you need to work on the physical side, and I worked hard on that. Everything has paid off, and I just want to think about the good things and not what's past and I want to look towards the future now.”

[jayakris]

Leander Paes followed by Mahesh Bhupathi and then Jeev Milkha Singh were the first Indian names I ever saw being mentioned in the ESPN sports center news in the US. For the first dozen or so years of my life in the US since 1985, I never saw an Indian name on ESPN here and actually wondered dearly when we would see one such name. Then Leander appeared in 1996. Since then, I have seen Arjun, Sania, Somdev and Tendulkar mentioned (the last one as a curiosity - something like, this guy is like the Barry Bonds of India or something). Of course, they don't cover cricket, badminton, shooting, archery, wrestling or amateur shooting!

Like LP, Jeev is indeed a pioneer.

Jay

PS: I am sure Zeeshan Ali and Gaurav Natekar showed up with LP on ESPN sports center with the customary snide remarks in 1994 when USA whitewashed us 5-0 in Jaipur in Davis Cup, but I wasn't in any mood to check, after the losses....

[PKBasu]

I watched that Davis Cup match during my final months in the US, and remember (a) the astonishment of all the commentators at the fact that each Indian player was the son of a famous Indian sportsman (Nandu, Vece, Akhtar getting a hearing there...); and (b) Fred Stolle remarking that Leander Paes had very quick hands and reflexes, which would make him a very fine doubles player (ofcourse, LP had already made a USO semifinal in doubles the previous year, so this wasn't really such a great discovery, but it was nice to hear nonetheless -- and prescient too!).

Surely, Ramesh Krishnan (and occasionally Vijay Amritraj) also figured in ESPN sport-center in those early years, Jay. I remember I used to follow Ramesh's progress on the ATP tour via the sports pages of the NYT, and of course he made the Wimbledon QF in 1986, and USO QF for the second time in 1987 (the first being 1981) -- apart from that big win over Wilander (USO, AO and FO reigning champ and world #1) at the AO in 1989.

But, once Ramesh retired, it was great to have the drought leavened by the appearance of Jeev and Leander. The former was a huge curiosity in the US when he started contending on the EPGA tour. The US has now appropriated golf as a quintessentially American sport -- although it is ofcourse primarily Scottish. (But then, most WASPs are of Scottish descent, including the Bush family, Reagan, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, etc.; of that lot, Reagan is considered Scots-Irish, but that is really being of Scottish descent via Ireland). In the 20th century, there has of course been quite a bit of diversity in ethnic backgrounds among US presidents: the Roosevelts were of Dutch descent (from the city formerly known as New Amsterdam), the Kennedys Irish, and Obama is half-Kenyan, while Bill Clinton's ethnicity and parentage were extremely colorful.