Shiv Chowrasia, also known as Shiv Shankar Prasad Chowrasia, is an Indian professional golf player. He began his professional career in the year 1997 and marked the winning of eight titles on the Indian tour. He also finished second in the Indian Open twice. Shiv Chowrasia is also popularly known as Chow and Chipputtsia. He is also the third Indian golfer to win on the European Tour after Jeev Milkha Singh and Arjun Atwal. He won the inaugural Indian Masters in the 2008 European Tour. He also won the 2011 Avantha Masters in New Delhi in his second European Tour event.
Early Life of Shiv Chowrasia
Shiv Chowrasia was born on 15th May 1978 in Kolkata, West Bengal. By profession, his father was a greenskeeper at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club in Kolkata. At the age of 10, Shiv Chowrasia began exploring golf at this very golf course. He is a self taught golfer and owing to his short games he has been nicknamed as Chip-putt-sia.
Career of Shiv Chowrasia
Shiv Chowrasia served as a caddie for some years before marking his presence in the professional golf. He entered this arena in the year 1997 and by the end of the year 1998 earned much. In the 1999 Indian Open organized at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, Shiv Chowrasia finished second to Arjun Atwal. In 2006 he joined the Asian Tour. By this time he had already made steady progress in India along with cumulative earnings and eight Indian Tour titles. In the first season of his Asian Tour he marked a good opening event in the Pakistan Open in addition to top-20 finishes in Philippine Open and in China. Following this he had a top-10 finish at Bangkok Airways Open. He had a narrow miss for the title at the 2006 Hero Honda Indian Open. The year 2006 ended for him with a tenth place in Volvo Masters. In 2006 his Asian Tour ranking was 38 which improved in 2007 as 32.
He participated in the 2008 Indian Masters which had eminent Indian as well as international golfers like Ross McGowan, Maarten Lafeber, Arjun Atwal, Digvijay Singh and others. Chowrasia won an event with a score of nine under par with an earning that doubled his earnings of the past decade. In this biggest golf event of India, he also earned the credit of being the only player to achieve sub-par rounds on all four days. Before the tournament his ranking was 388 in the world but his victory got him ranked 161 in the official world golf rankings. He also got a two-year exemption on the European Tour and topped the Asian Tour Order of Merit.
