Ollie Schniederjans completed a remarkable comeback victory at International Series India presented by DLF, in front of a captivated audience packing out the DLF Golf and Country Club in Gurugram on Sunday.
The American, lifted by an outrageous chip in for birdie on 13, fired a three-under-par 69 for a four-round aggregate of 10-under.
It gave him a surprise 4-shot victory over reigning U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, his nearest challenger – in the opening event of the year on The International Series that brought crowds flocking to Gurugram.
The two-time major winner and captain of Crushers GC pulled out all the stops with a 7-under round of 65, but it wasn’t enough to cancel out an eight-shot gap that Schniederjans had built up over him going into the final round, and he finished on six under for the week.
Abraham Ancer of Fireballs GC finished joint third on two under after a level-par final round, alongside reigning International Series Rankings champion and Torque GC captain Joaquin Niemann, with only four players finishing under par on the testing Gary Player-designed course.
“It means a lot to me,” said the 31-year-old Schniederjans, ably supported by his middle brother Ben as caddie this week. “This golf course is very challenging, and back in the day I would have had a hard time out here, so to come out and shoot those scores now, with everything I have been through, my game is a lot better than it ever was. This was proof this week.”
The third round had to be completed Sunday morning, and Schniederjans got off to a great start as he carved out a three-shot lead on seven under.
The field had nine holes to finish after a first shotgun start on Saturday afternoon, and the American birdied his first three holes – 10, 11 and 12 – enroute to a 69. He had a five-shot lead at the turn from Higa and DeChambeau. That lead became six when he sensationally chipped in for a 3 on the par-four 13th from a difficult lie to the right of green, where it looked like a bogey would be more likely.
The backlog was the result of long delays every day caused by thick fog each morning. In order to complete 72 holes, the organisers switched to shotgun starts for rounds three and four, with players staying in the same pairings.
Schniederjans’ win is a remarkable one. He had replacement surgery on both hips in 2022 and was out of the game for well over a year.
It was his final attempt to fix a whole host of injury issues which had derailed the career of a player who was ranked the world’s top amateur in 2014 for 41 consecutive weeks. He also won on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2016, the year after turning professional.
Schniederjans is playing this week by virtue of finishing fourth at last year’s LIV Golf Promotions event, with the top-10 players earning playing rights for The International Series.
A six-man group which included local hero Anirban Lahiri, DeChambeau’s Crushers GC team mate on LIV Golf, finished T10, while Frenchman Julien Sale, winner of the Smart Infinity Philippine Open last week, the Asian Tour’s season-opener, finished in a group on T16 with Asian Tour Rookie of the Stefano Mazzoli.
Fellow Indian Gaganjeet Bhullar, the 11-time Asian Tour champion, was T24 on seven over, two ahead of Karandeep Kochhar (+9), with Yuvraj Sandhu on 11 over.
Amateur star Kartik Singh, who at aged 15 became the youngest Indian to make the cut on the Asian Tour, signed off with a 75 to finish T53, just behind Shubhankar Sharma and SSP Chawrasia. Shiv Kapur, Ajeetesh Sandhu and Rahil Gangjee were the other Indian players to finish the weekend after making the cut.
The next event on the Asian Tour is the New Zealand Open presented by Sky Sport (February 27 – March 2), which will be followed by the International Series Macau presented by Wynn (March 20-23) – the second elevated event of 10 that offers a pathway onto the LIV Golf League.
