Pioneering figure Jeev Milkha Singh heads an all-star cast at the season-ending Tata Steel Tour Championship that tees off in Jamshedpur on Wednesday.
The tournament, to be played at the Steel City’s Beldih and Golmuri golf courses, has put up the biggest ever prize purse ever on the PGTI, at Rs 3 crore double of what was on offer at the 2021 edition. The event will feature an elite field of 77 professionals contesting the 72-hole stroke-play event and there will be no cut with every participant guaranteed a share of the purse.
This year the Tour Championship has garnered extra interest with a heated battle for Tata Steel PGTI Rankings going down to the wire. Manu Gandas with six victories and Yuvraj Singh Sandhu with five are the runaway leaders though Gandas now sits on a Rs 12 lakh-plus lead with his win at the Rs 1 crore S.S.P. Chawrasia Invitational at Kolkata last week.
At Jamshedpur, the format will see the field play all four rounds, with half playing their first nine holes at Golmuri and second nine at Beldih while the other half will play their first nine at Golmuri and second nine at Beldih.
From round two onwards, the top half of the leaderboard will play their first nine holes at Golmuri and second nine at Beldih. The prize presentation will be held at Beldih Golf Club on Saturday, December 24. Besides Jeev, the event has drawn a top field including some of the biggest names in Indian golf – Gaganjeet Bhullar (2020 champion), two-time Indian Open champion S.S.P. Chawrasia, Shiv Kapur, three-time Indian Open winner Jyoti Randhawa and Rashid Khan.
The field will also feature the top 60 from the PGTI Order of Merit, Besides Gandas and Yuvraj Sandhu, it includes the likes of Ajeetesh Sandhu, Om Prakash Chouhan and Karandeep Kochhar as well as Udayan Mane, the 2019 and 2021 winner.
“For golfers and fans around the world and India, the game symbolises mental endurance and stamina,” said Sanjiv Paul, Vice President, Safety, Health & Sustainability, Tata Steel & Golf Captain, Jamshedpur Golf.
“Tata Steel considers its association with this prestigious tour as a matter of great honour and privilege and a good representation of what we stand for beyond the excitement all of us get from the game.”
Added PGTI chief executive Uttam Singh Mundy, “We thank Tata Steel for their unflinching support to PGTI for over a decade and a half.
“The Tata Steel Tour Championship 2022, which will be aired Live on Eurosport as well as PGTI’s YouTube channel, promises to be a visual spectacle for golf fans across the country as the stellar field will boast some of the biggest names of Indian golf.
“The tournament will also decide the winner of the Tata Steel PGTI Ranking, a contest which is likely to have an extremely close finish thus adding more excitement during the week.”
The Beldih and Golmuri golf courses sit with Jharkhand’s Dalma Hills as a backdrop. While the 70-year-old Beldih Golf Course flaunts long fairways, Golmuri Golf Course is a smaller, greener, boutique course with little room for error.