Looking back at 2025: India’s golf events grow richer, players stuck in mediocrity

Rory Mcllroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Tommy Fleetwood, Joaquin Niemann, Shane Lowry, Viktor Hovland.

- Shantanu Srivastava

Rory Mcllroy during the DP World India Championship at the DGC in October.

If star appearances were an indicator, Indian golf never had it this big.The year 2025 began with LIV Golf breaking ground in India through its $2 million International Series in Gurugram while the second half of the year witnessed $4 million DP World India Championships at the iconic Delhi Golf Club. In between was the men’s Hero India Open with a prize purse of $2.5 million.

None of these big-ticket events, however, had an Indian winner. No one, in fact, came close. While hosting high-profile tournaments certainly gives India a big lift in the global golf market, the absence of a world-class Indian golfer calls for a dispassionate reality check.

Indian pros coming unstuck at major events is no longer an anomaly. The days of Jeev Milkha Singh, Arjun Atwal and Jyoti Randhawa are long gone and the current lot, despite its promise, is still searching for its moment under the sun. The last win by an Indian man on the European Tour was in 2018, and the last time an Indian man won on the Asian Tour was in 2023.