But Shane turned out to be quite the part among the graduating players making the cut for the 2009 season of the Professional Golf Tour of India. First, it was his late blitz in Friday’s last round at Gurgaon’s Golden Greens resort that made him the latest foreign entrant on the domestic golf circuit. Then, there were his clearly Asian looks.

Shane, whose family moved from Afghanistan to the United States before he was born, still has distant familial links in Pakistan. “I even went to play a professional tournament in Pakistan once,” he said. But that is not the only reason the middle-aged man, who has been spending most of his past years keeping profit margins rather than yardages in mind, is here in India.    

“I was missing playing golf. I just wanted to give myself some time off, doing what I love,” he said. Some educated Internet research yielded this chance to make an attempt at professional golf in far-flung India, and Shane grabbed it.

“I had turned professional in 1995, played a bit on the local pro tours in America but never really seriously. I know golf in

India is of pretty good level, so when I found out about the Q-School here, I sent in an entry.

“I practised hard for about a month.”

The practice was good enough, and so was the game when it mattered. Having started off Friday morning in the 30th spot, and on a wrong note with a double bogey, Shane was in trouble after his first nine holes. Then, he made three birdies in a row and was suddenly looking very likely to make this year’s schedule, set to grab one of only three spots allowed to foreign nationals on the circuit from the Q-school.