India’s best performers on the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) and Asian Golf Tour will be on view at the Louis Philippe Cup 2014, competing for teams representing nine cities. The four-day event at the BPGC from February 19-22 features Anirban Lahiri, Siddikur Rahman and Gaganjeet Bhullar (selected for the Asian squad at the Asia vs Europe event next month).
Lahiri is India’s highest ranked pro golfer and ranked three on the Asian Tour last year. Siddikur from Bangladesh is ranked fourth on the Asian Tour 2013. Bhullar is the latest golfer to be named for the Arjuna award and earned full European Tour card for 2014. These three will compete for Bangalore, Gurgaon and Greater Noida respectively.
Golf is an individual sport, yet the Louis Philippe Cup will be played on a team format, inspired by Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews course. “We want to create a following in cities across India, hence decided on city-based representation. By getting pros to turn out for different teams, we hope to excite amateur golfers in tracking the performances of big names,” explained promoter Rishi Narain.
He added: “Bangalore has city pros in Eagleton Golf Club’s Lahiri, S Chikkarangappa and M Dharma from Karnataka Golf Association. Lanka’s Mithun Perera should be playing for Colombo, but Ahmedabad has almost adopted him after last year’s showing.” Jeev Milkha Singh will be among three pros turning out for Delhi, PGTI Championship winner Mukesh Kumar for Chennai, two-time European Tour winner S S P Chowrasia for Chennai.
Silverglades Delhi beat DLF Gurgaon in the final last year. The prize money per team is Rs 36 lakhs (winner), Rs 24 lakhs (runner-up).
Kapil Dev, Syed Kirmani are among amateur golfers slated to play a Pro-Am tournament with other celebrities on Tuesday, a day prior to the main event.
Format
First two rounds between nine city-based teams, each side to have three professionals. Four teams with best total over 36 holes strokeplay will move into the
semifinal, team rankings calculated on basis of two best professional scores out of three players competing. Semifinals on knockout basis, elimination matchplay
in strokeplay format between three players each side to decide the two finalists. .
Teams line-up:
Navratna Ahmedabad (Mithun Perera, Vinod Kumar, Vikrant Chopra).
Puravankara Bangalore (Anirban Lahiri, S Chikkarangappa, M Dharma).
TAKE Chennai (Mukesh Kumar, S S P Chowrasia, Manav Jaini).
Krrish Colombo (Himmat Rai, K Prabagaran, N Thangaraja.
Shubhkamna Delhi (Jeev Milkha Singh, Rashid Khan, Shamim Khan).
Jaypee Greens Greater Noida (Gaganjeet Bhullar, Sanjay Kumar, Angad Cheema).
DLF Gurgaon (Siddikur Rahman, Abhinav Lohan, Abhijit Singh Chadha).
AVT Kolkata (Rahil Ganjee, Shankar Das, Chiragh Kumar).
Dev Ellora Laqshya Mumbai (Jyoti Randhawa, Harendra Gupta, Mohd Zamal)
