Yuvraj Sandhu needs to perform better to retain his European playing rights
2025 PGTI No 1, Yuvraj Sandhu’s rookie season on the DP World Tour continues to be a learning curve, with the Chandigarh golfer registering a T-63 finish at the US$2.75 million Soudal Open in Belgium.
The 29-year-old, who earned promotion to the DP World Tour after finishing No.1 on the 2025 PGTI rankings, carded rounds of 70-68-68-73 for the week.
The result marked only Sandhu’s third cut in nine starts this season, and he needs to do much more to climb into the the top 110 rankings at season’s end in order to retain full playing rights for 2027.
Sandhu’s best finish so far remains a T-31 result in Spain two weeks ago, where he showed flashes of the form that dominated PGTI last season.
With 18 regular-season events still remaining, Sandhu has time to improve his position, but the challenge of transitioning from domestic dominance to consistent performances on a global tour continues to test Indian professionals.
Recent PGTI ranking winners such as Om Prakash Chouhan, Manu Gandas and Veer Ahlawat have all failed to capitalise on the opportunity to play in Europe and were unable to finish in the top 110 and so had to return to their home tour.
For Sandhu, the next few months could become an important measure of whether India’s domestic structure is producing players ready to sustain themselves consistently at the higher international level.
Meanwhile, two-time DP World Tour winner Shubhankar Sharma missed his eighth cut in 14 starts this season after rounds of 70-72.
The tour is in Austria this week for the US$ 2.75 mn Austrian Alpine Open from May 28-31.