Crompton Greaves Open tees off tomorrow
Mumbai: Indian golfers, including Harendra Gupta, Rashid Khan and Angad Cheema would be seen in action at the Crompton Greaves Open from November 27-30.
The other domestic golfers set to tee off at the Rs one crore prize money event include Ashok Kumar, Mukesh Kumar, Shamim Khan, Digvijay Singh, Amandeep Johl, and Manav Jaini. "The CG Open is one of the marquee events on the PGTI calendar and an important week on the tour in western India. The CG Open's handsome prize purse of Rs one crore has contributed towards making the sport was just more competitive," said Padamjit Sandhu, Director, PGTI.
"The 2013 edition of the tournament is set to witness some high quality golfing action as the race for the Rolex Rankings crown enters its final and most exciting phase," he added.
Last edition's winner Harendra Gupta said that he is under little bit pressure to defend his title. He acknowledged that Rashid Khan, the PGTI Order of Merit, would be a tough competitor, given how he has played recently.
Khan, who lost out to Gupta last time, said he hopes to win this time around. Asked if the event is not scheduled properly with other opens happening around the same time, Sandhu said, "If you see the first six to eight weeks or almost technically the three months of the year, there are events in Asia, Europe and US back-to-back. It is not only a challenge that PGTI faces."
"If you ask my perspective on lot of Indians playing overseas this week, the whole idea of the domestic tour is to get the youngsters and our players to get better and to go on and play at the higher tours. Scheduling, yes we try to get the events right but last 8 weeks it is impossible to get it right because there is an event every week in Europe or Asia. The players will always make a choice," he added.
He further said they haven't announced their calendar for 2014 as PGTI is waiting for Asia to announce theirs. On losing sponsorship, Sandhu said, "Events going off, it is part and parcel of the sport... Barring a few international events for 2014 the domestic tour will look stronger for 2014."