The country's 30 leading professional golfers, including European Tour regulars Jyoti Randhawa, S.S. P. Chowrasia and Shiv Kapur, will be part of the field for the inaugural Louis Phillipe Cup golf championship, the richest domestic tournament offering Rs.1.24 crore in prize-money.
The five-day event tees off at the Karnakata Golf Association course, Bangalore, from March 6 to 10.
The ten franchisees — from Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Kolkata, Lucknow, West (Mumbai-Pune) and Noida — will field three-member teams.
The five-day competition will witness a pro-am event, followed by two days of stroke-play involving all 10 teams. Four teams will qualify for the semifinals, to be played in the match-play format. Each individual contest offers one point for a win. Ties, if any, will be broken by sudden-death playoffs.
The final will be played on March 10, with the winning trio collecting Rs.36 lakh and the runner-up Rs.24 lakh. The winner of the third-place playoff will receive Rs.18 lakh and the loser Rs.12 lakh.
Addressing newspersons here on Wednesday, former Test captain Kapil Dev hailed the initiative and encouraged the players to play for “money, pride and the sponsor.”
“I'll be forever grateful to the roles played by the media and the sponsors during my playing days. Today, Indian cricket is what it is due to these two factors. I am sure golf, too, will get similar support and reach greater heights,” he said.
Ironically, when quizzed about his recent comment on Sachin Tendulkar, Kapil gently admonished the media for taking his remark out of context.
Pointing to the mediapersons, Kapil said, “You used only part of my comment and made it sensational. I maintain my views. Sachin is among the greats of world cricket. One more century or 10 more centuries will not affect his greatness,” he said.
He refused to take a question on Indian hockey, saying: “Every other Indian sportsperson is playing somewhere. Today, let's talk golf.”
The teams:Navratna Ahmedabad: Mithun Perera (Colombo), Vinod Kumar and Vikrant Chopra (both Delhi). Puravankara Bangalore: Anirban Lahiri, Abhishek Jha (both Bangalore) and Manav Jaini (Delhi). Dev Ellora Chandigarh: Gaganjeet Bhullar (Kapurthala), Harendra Gupta and Sujjan Singh (both Chandigarh). Take Chennai: Anura Rohana (Colombo), S. S. P. Chowrasia (Kolkata) and Gaurav Ghei (Delhi). The 3C Delhi: Rashid Khan, Shamim Khan and Shiv Kapur (all Delhi). DLF Gurgaon: Jyoti Randhawa, Himmat Singh Rai and Digvijay Singh (all Gurgaon). AVT Kolkata: Shankar Das, Feroz Ali (both Kolkata) and Chiragh Kumar (Delhi). Ansal API Lucknow: Sanjay Kumar, Vijay Kumar (both Lucknow) and Siddikur Rahman (Bangladesh). Oxford Group West: Mukesh Kumar (Mhow), Ashok Kumar and Vivek Bhandari (both Delhi). Shubhkamna Noida: Raju Ali Mollah (Kolkata) and Gaurav Pratap Singh (Noida).
