Ahmedabad: Tatsuya Suzuki and Paras Adukia won in the Japanese and India category respectively in the prestigious 11th Indo Nippon Golf Cup that culminated at the Jeev Milkha Singh signature Kensville Golf & Country Club here on Sunday. The Ahmedabad leg of the 2015 edition was presented by Standard Chartered and supported by the Japan Chamber of Commerce & Industry in India. The Kensville Golf & Country Club played generous host to the mega event.

Suzuki who tallied 35 stableford points stood eight points clear of the second –placed Masazumi Konishi while Adukia tallied 40 stableford points to grab the honours over Rajiv Vasa who was second best at 36 points. The event saw as many as 20 Japanese golfers with an almost identical number of Indian participants.

In the various skill prizes held alongside the main event, Mihir Sharma won the 2nd shot closest to pin award while Bhavesh Dave emerged as the Longest Driver. Takuya Kagawa won the Straightest drive prize with Mukesh Panchal and Masazumi Konishi won the Closest to the Pin and Ambidextrous Drive prizes respectively.

The event, which was first played in 2006, has become a regular feature on the yearly calendar and has grown exponentially every year to be now also being held in Ahmedabad, due to the increasing number of Japanese investments in Gujarat.

By the intermingling of business leaders from both countries, the event provides a fillip to building social and economic relationships with Japan.

The endeavor for this year’s ‘Indo Nippon Golf Cup’ would be to promote the Japanese incubation for living and a world class soft skill development centre besides investment options for Japanese corporate in India and exchange of technical know-how.

Some of notable players who played in the event are Masazumi Konishi, President of JCCII, Kazuharu Kono, Secretary General of JCCII, Yasunori Takeuchi, CEO Standard Chartered Bank - Japan and Shunji Fukuda of Hitachi Hirel amongst others.

Rahul Sharma, the man behind this unique event, said: “There was a need of a platform where the business leaders from both the nations could interact in a relaxed atmosphere rather than the boring boardrooms. Therefore we chose golf as a common connect and hence the idea of Indo Nippon Golf Cup germinated.”

The next edition of the Indo Nippon Golf Cup will be held in Delhi in November.