Jeev Milkha Singh

For the athlete also known as the "Flying Sikh", see Milkha Singh.
Jeev Milkha Singh

Singh at the 2009 Omega European Masters
Personal information
Full name Jeev Milkha Singh
Born 15 December 1971 (1971-12-15) (age 40)
Chandigarh, India
Height 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
Weight 165 lb (75 kg; 11.8 st)
Nationality  India
Residence Chandigarh, India
Career
College Abilene Christian University
Turned professional 1993
Current tour(s) European Tour
Asian Tour
Former tour(s) PGA Tour
Professional wins 19
Number of wins by tour
European Tour 3
Japan Golf Tour 4
Asian Tour 6
Best results in Major Championships
Masters Tournament T25: 2008
U.S. Open T36: 2007
The Open Championship CUT: 2007
PGA Championship T9: 2008
Achievements and awards
Padma Shri 2007
Asian Tour
Order of Merit		 2006, 2008

Jeev Milkha Singh (born 15 December 1971) is the first Indian professional golfer to become a member of the European Tour. He is the highest ranked Indian golfer in the world and first broke into the top 100 in October 2006.

Contents

Early life

Singh was born in Chandigarh, India, in a Sikh Rajput[1] family to Indian Olympic athlete Milkha Singh and Nirmal Kaur, former captain of the Indian women's volleyball team.[2] He lives in Chandigarh.

Singh attended Abilene Christian University in the United States, obtaining a degree in business and international studies[3] in 1996.[4]

Career

Singh won the NCAA Division II individual golf championship in 1993. He also won a number of amateur tournaments in the U.S. His first professional win came at the 1993 Southern Oklahoma State Open, a minor local event, but he played mainly in Asia, where he was a regular winner in the mid-1990s. In 1997 he finished seventh at the European Tour qualifying school, and he joined the tour the following year.

His best season in Europe up until 2006 was in 1999, when he came 50th on the Order of Merit. He struggled with injury in the early years of the new century but in April 2006 he won the Volvo China Open, becoming the second Indian player to win on the European Tour after Arjun Atwal. He also won the season ending Volvo Masters, which elevated him to a final position of 16th on the Order of Merit. He finished 2006 as the winner of the Asian Tour Order of Merit and capped his season with a pair of back to back wins in Japan to become the first Indian to make the top 50 of the Official World Golf Rankings.[5] In 2007 he became the first Indian golfer to participate in the Masters Tournament.[6] In August 2008, Singh achieved the highest ranking for an Indian in any major event at the 2008 PGA Championship in Oakland Hills, finishing at T9, making him arguably India's best golfer ever.

Singh finished the 2008 European Tour season ranked 12th on the Order of Merit, and after winning the Barclays Singapore Open won his second Order of Merit title on the Asian Tour.

In 2009, Singh finished the WGC-CA Championship in fourth place, after leading round one.

Singh played on the Nationwide Tour in 2003. He played on the PGA Tour from 2007 to 2010, where his best finish was 4th place at the 2009 WGC-CA Championship.

Singh received India's fourth highest civil honour the Padma Shri in 2007.

Amateur wins (1)

Professional wins (19)

European Tour wins (3)

No. Date Tournament Winning Score Margin of
Victory		 Runner(s)-up
1 16 Apr 2006 Volvo China Open -10 (72–69–67–70=278) 1 stroke Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño
2 29 Oct 2006 Volvo Masters -2 (71–71–68–72=282) 1 stroke Luke Donald, Sergio García,
Pádraig Harrington
3 8 Jun 2008 Bank Austria GolfOpen -15 (64–63–71=198) 1 stroke Simon Wakefield

Asian Tour wins (6)

Japan Golf Tour wins (4)

No. Date Tournament Winning Score Margin of
Victory		 Runner(s)-up
1 26 Nov 2006 Casio World Open -16 (66–69–69–68=272) 2 strokes David Smail
2 3 Dec 2006 Golf Nippon Series JT Cup -11 (67–65–67–70=269) 1 stroke Nobuhiro Masuda
3 27 Jul 2008 Nagashima Shigeo Invitational Sega Sammy Cup -13 (67–74–68–66=275) 2 strokes Sushi Ishigaki
4 7 Dec 2008 Golf Nippon Series JT Cup -12 (64–70–68–66=268) 2 strokes Brendan Jones, David Smail,
Taichi Teshima

Other wins (7)

Results in major championships

Tournament 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
The Masters DNP DNP DNP DNP DNP T37 T25 CUT
U.S. Open T62 DNP DNP DNP T59 T36 DNP CUT
The Open Championship DNP DNP DNP DNP DNP CUT DNP DNP
PGA Championship DNP DNP DNP DNP DNP CUT T9 T67

DNP = did not play
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
Yellow background for top-10.

Results in World Golf Championship events

Tournament 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Accenture Match Play Championship R64 DNP R64 R16 DNP
Cadillac Championship T28 T26 4 DNP DNP
Bridgestone Invitational T51 DNP T64 DNP DNP
HSBC Champions – – T33 DNP T23

DNP = Did not play
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
Yellow background for top 10.
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.

European Tour professional career summary

Year Starts Cuts Made Wins 2nd 3rd Top 10 Top 25 Earnings (€) Money list rank
1994 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 n/a1
1995 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 4,200 n/a1
1996 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 6,944 n/a1
1997 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 8,689 n/a1
1998 22 11 0 0 0 1 5 83,823 104
1999 24 15 0 1 1 2 8 222,783 50
2000 13 5 0 0 0 2 3 68,199 145
2001 17 10 0 0 0 2 4 174,011 108
2002 20 8 0 0 0 1 2 83,347 152
2003 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 1,773 n/a1
2004 5 3 0 0 0 1 1 28,817 n/a1
2005 7 5 0 0 0 1 2 42,845 n/a1
2006 16 11 2 0 0 4 8 1,173,177 16
2007 31 27 0 0 1 1 9 717,910 46
2008 24 19 1 2 0 8 15 1,170,109 10
2009 22 17 0 0 0 3 8 847,844 34
2010 15 10 0 0 0 2 7 393,449 74
2011 30 17 0 0 0 2 8 329,262 94
Total 253 162 3 3 2 30 80 4,751,393 69

1 Not a full Tour member in these years

Team appearances

Amateur

Professional

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.indiansportsnews.com/component/content/article/930-indian-sports-legends/1066-milkha-singh.html
  2. ^ "Jeev Milkha Singh," the south-asian.com June 2002. Retrieved 15 March 2009.
  3. ^ "Carry on, Jeev," The Telegraph (Calcutta, India), 4 November 2006. Retrieved 22 September 2008.
  4. ^ "Wildcats lead way as LSC honors all-time top performers," ACU Today, Summer 2007, p.32. Retrieved 22 September 2008.
  5. ^ Punjab Golf Association confers award on Jeev Milkha Singh, zeenews.com, 31 December 2006.
  6. ^ Record 34 European Tour Members Invited to Augusta

External links