Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Feb 24 (IANS) Some of the top players on the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) including Olympian Udayan Mane, will be in the fray in the inaugural Chhattisgarh Open Golf Championship, the first-ever PGTI event in the state, which carries a prize purse of INR 1 crore, which will be played at the Fairway Golf & Lake Resort in Naya Raipur from February 25 to 28.
The tournament will have a field of 126 players including 123 professionals and three amateurs. The event will be played in the stroke-play format consisting of four rounds of 18 holes each. The top 50 players and ties will make the cut after two rounds. The par for the course is 69, the PGTI announced here on Monday.
The star-studded field for the tournament will feature leading Indian professionals Om Prakash Chouhan, Rashid Khan, Manu Gandas, Aman Raj, and Chikkarangappa S., to name a few.
There are 13 foreign players from seven different countries participating in the tournament. The foreign names include Bangladeshis Jamal Hossain, Badal Hossain, Md Akbar Hossain and Md Somrat Sikdar, Sri Lankans N. Thangaraja and K. Prabagaran, Americans Koichiro Sato and Dominic Piccirillo, Nepal’s Sukra Bahadur Rai and Subash Tamang, Czech Republic’s Stepan Danek, Italy’s Federico Zucchetti and Uganda’s Joshua Seale.
The Fairway Golf & Lake Resort, Naya Raipur, is located on the bank of a 450-acre Jhanjh lake and beautifully surrounded by almost a 500-acre forest.
The PGTI has so far staged events across India in 16 States, two Union Territories, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. With the staging of the SECL Chhattisgarh Open Golf Championship, the PGTI makes its first foray into the state of Chattisgarh, thus further expanding its geographical footprint in the country to 17 States.
Arun Sao, Deputy Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, expressed his excitement about the upcoming Chhattisgarh Open Golf Championship, the first-ever professional golf event in the state.
Sharing his vision for the event and its significance for the region, Arun Sao said: “I am delighted to support the staging of the first-ever professional golf event in Chhattisgarh in association with the PGTI. The inaugural Chattisgarh Open Golf Championship will play a pivotal role in promoting the state as an attractive golfing destination and placing it firmly on the international golfing map. This event will not only bring leading professionals from India and overseas to Chhattisgarh but will also inspire budding golfers in the state to dream big and aim high.”
Kapil Dev, President, PGTI, said, “We at the PGTI are very excited about exploring new territory by taking the tour to Chhattisgarh for the first time thus expanding PGTI’s base across the country. This is in line with PGTI’s core objective of creating maximum playing opportunities for our Indian professionals.”
Amandeep Johl, CEO, PGTI, said, “The staging of the SECL Chhattisgarh Open is a major landmark moment for the PGTI as we expand our geographical base by adding Chattisgarh to our schedule for the first time. The professionals are extremely excited about taking up the challenge of playing at the outstanding Fairway Golf & Lake Resort for the first time.”
–IANS
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