Indian Open golf: Nakajima hopes recent upswing helps defend title
Keita Nakajima aims to defend his title at the Hero Indian Open, seeking to regain form after a challenging year with hopes of joining the PGA Tour.
New Delhi: Keita Nakajima has rediscovered his best golf after a year that saw plenty of lows as the Japanese prepares to defend his title at the $2.25 million Hero Indian Open, starting at the DLF Golf and Country Club on Thursday.
The 24-year-old registered his first victory on the DP World Tour to mark his maiden season, making a statement of his talent with a 17-under par total on a difficult course in Gurugram, which even tested Bryson DeChambeau in the International Series event held in January-February.
“Last year, winning here was so great. It gave me a lot of confidence in my first season and I was also able to play all the way to the Tour Championship in Dubai. This is a tough course. I don’t know how I won last year, but I will just stay patient this year,” the 24-year-old told the media on Tuesday.
Nakajima’s built on the 2024 victory in Gurugram to get into the Paris Olympics field but a T45 finish followed by fitness issues that forced him to take a break. “I had back pain after the Olympics and then I stopped playing. I started playing again like one month back (in January), so I would like to say thank you to the team, family and also agents.”
He made the cut and had modest finishes in all his four events on DP World Tour’s Middle East Swing, but finishing second in last week’s Singapore Classic, the first of four Asian Swing events on the European Tour, one shot behind Englishman Richard Mansell has boosted his confidence. Mansell is also in the field this week.
“Last week at Singapore, the performance was great… I finished second but I was playing great and I still feel positive this week,” he said.
Nakajima though has a clear ambition. “I want to win this tournament again and I want to play PGA Tour next year. So, now it’s five Japanese people playing PGA Tour, right. This is so good for Japan. I want to also go into PGA and join them.”
Germany’s 2023 Indian Open winner Marcel Siem is in the 138-player field. SSP Chawrasia, 46, who won the event in 2016 and 2017, is the other former champion after receiving a sponsor’s invitation.
Siem has overcome a hip injury to start playing again. “Since two months my hip is not hurting at all anymore. I can do normal stuff in the gym,” Siem, 44, a six-time winner on the European tour, said. His T9 finish in the Joburg Open in March first week was reward to his playing week after week to regain rhythm. In 2023, Siem’s win was his first on the DP World Tour for nine years. He also won the Italian Open last June.
India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar, 36, hopes the wait for an Indian to win the Indian Open ends. The last was Chawrasia’s success in the first year after the event shifted to DLF from Delhi Golf Course. Bhullar’s only win DP World Tour was in Fiji, in 2018. He has 11 Asian Tour wins.
“I’ve never had an international win on the big tour in India. So that’s definitely on the back of my mind. I have played well in DLF. I love to win this tournament one day.”
