Pune: The Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), the official sanctioning body of professional golf in India, will be staging the inaugural Pune Open at the picturesque Oxford Golf Resort from April 5 – 8, 2016. The Pune Open, the sixth event of the PGTI’s 2016 season, carries a prize purse of Rs. 30 lakh. The Pro-Am event is scheduled for April 9.
The tournament will see some of India’s leading professionals in action such as Asian Tour regulars Gaganjeet Bhullar, Rashid Khan, Chiragh Kumar and Himmat Singh Rai as well as other top names including Udayan Mane, Mukesh Kumar, Shamim Khan, Ajeetesh Sandhu, Ashok Kumar and Abhijit Singh Chadha, to name a few. The foreign challenge will be led by the Sri Lankan duo of N Thangaraja and Anura Rohana. Pune’s Gurki Shergill (winner of 8th TATA Open 2009) will be one of the prominent professionals from the host city taking part in the event.
Aman Raj of Patna, PGTI’s 2016 Qualifying School champion and India’s number one amateur in 2015, will be making his professional debut at the Pune Open along with another leading Indian amateur Samarth Dwivedi.
This is a 72-hole stroke-play tournament featuring a field of 120 players which would include 120 professionals and six amateurs. The cut will be applied after the first 36 holes. The top 50 players and ties will make the halfway cut and continue to play for another 36 holes.
Uttam Singh Mundy, Director, PGTI, said, “The city of Pune is fast emerging as an important golfing centre in the country. The Pune Open has been launched with the objective of tapping into the local talent and further promoting the sport in the city. We thank the Oxford Golf Resort for partnering with us in staging the Pune Open and look forward to a successful inaugural edition.”
The venue for the tournament, the magnificent Oxford Golf Resort, is a 7020 yard, Par 72 championship course. The course is built on 136 acres of land that is Horseshoe shaped and surrounded on three sides by the Sahyadri Hills that give the course a stunning aura. The award-winning course is known for its well-maintained fairways and greens. The sparkling bunkers with gleaming white sand twist and turn their way across fairways and alongside greens. Breeze is a big factor and so are changes in elevation across the course. That coupled with the multitude of hazards and bunkers make it a challenging course for most golfers.
