Daniel Chopra’s spiky, moussed up blond hair provoked headlines like ‘Dyeing For Recognition’ but with the triumph at the USD 4.5 million Ginn sur Mer Classic on Monday, the Swede has finally ensconced himself in an elite club of players with a PGA Tour title against their name.

Chopra’s breakthrough victory made him the 12th first-time winner on the PGA Tour and the Stockholm-born golfer admitted it was a huge occasion for him.

Dream triumph

“It is something I’ve dreamt about for a long time,” said a beaming Chopra. “It’s not meant to be easy. I just didn’t realise it was going to be that tough,” he said.

Chopra admitted he tossed and turned in his bed in anticipation of his maiden win but everything fell in place in the final round.

“I was wound up pretty tight last night but amazingly in the morning I felt much more relaxed. I let it all kind of sink in and put things into perspective,” he said.

“All night, I was playing those holes over and over in my mind and never once did I play them the way I played them today,” he said.

Sterling show

His sterling show at the par-73 Tesoro Club Chopra earned him USD 810,000 and his career earning is about to touch the five-million mark.

Born to a Swedish mother and an Indian father, raised by grandparents after he moved to India at the age of seven and married to an Australian — Chopra is at ease with his cross-cultural life and admitted his split loyalty.
“I’m equally proud of both,” he said. “I consider myself half and half. I feel maybe more Swedish when I’m in Sweden and more Indian when I’m in India.

“I love both cultures and I grew up in India, so maybe my thinking might be a little bit more Indian. But I’m very proud of the fact that I have two great nationalities that follow me and are behind me and support me,” said Chopra, who has two Nationwide Tour titles and as many Challenge Tour wins under his belt.

Delhi connection

After honing his basics at the Delhi Golf Club, Chopra won the 1988 All-India Junior Golf Championship at the age of 14 and repeated the feat in 1990 and 1991. He won the 1993 Johor Baru Open and lifted Swedish International Championship, Indian Masters, Malaysian PGA Championship and Indian PGA Championship in 1994.

In 1995, he triumphed at the Republic of China Open and in 2001, he bagged both the Taiwan Masters and Mercuries Masters. But a title in the US PGA title was what Chopra was targetting and it finally arrived this week.

A close friend of Jeev Milkha Singh, Chopra turned professional in 1992 and from 1996 to 2002, he played mostly on the European Tour before joining the PGA Tour in 2004.

This week’s triumph, he hopes, will be the launching pad to many more titles in the future.