India's Kartik wins singles but US beat fighting Internationals narrowly

India's promising amateur Kartik Sharma scored a superb singles win on the final day of the second Junior Presidents Cup golf tournament. Sharma ranked 190th on the World Amateur Golf Rankings, beat Stephen Campbell, Jr. who is a 2019 Rolex Junior All American and won the 2018 US Kids Teen World Championships. Sharma won 3-up as the match finished on the 16th hole.

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On the first day, Sharma and Andi Xu lost to Preston Summerhays and Jackson Van Paris 6 and 4 in the day's shortest match in the Foursomes. In the Four-Ball, Sharma and Xu went down 1-3 to Vishnu Sadgopan and Benjamin Jones. Sharma, based in New Delhi, plays at the DLF Golf and Country Club and is coached by Anitya Chand, a former Asian Games participant for India.

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Defending champions, the United States Team, however, withstood a gallant fight back from the International team to win the Junior Presidents Cup for a second consecutive time at The Royal Melbourne Golf Club on Monday. After taking a comfortable 9-3 lead from the opening day's Four-Ball and Foursomes sessions, the American junior golfers saw the International Team pull to within three points in the Singles session through five wins in the top six matches, including a win by India's Sharma.  But after that the Americans once again pushed hard and won through wins by Ian Siebers, Michael Thorbjornsen, Alexander Yang and Vishnu Sadagopan scored the final win to secure the title for the US Team at 13-11. Sharma won the New South Wales Amateur Open in Australia in January and also the Indian Golf Union Western India Amateur Championship by one stroke.  He is the second Indian to feature in the Junior Presidents Cup following Rayhan Thomas' appearance in 2017. 

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