Sixteen winners confirm participation at 58th Hero Indian Open

Event organisers have said the 58th Hero Indian Open will feature as many as 16 international winners from the 2024 and 2025 seasons of the DP World (European) Tour schedule. Among them are the past two champions Marcel Siem of Germany (2023) and Japan’s Keita Nakajima, both popular winners at the DLF Golf and Country Club in Gurgaon. 

Defending champion Nakajima leads a strong field as this year’s national open will kick off on March 27 where a dozen winners from the 2024 DPWT schedule will be joined by four from the ongoing season, including Ryggs Johnston. (ISPS Handa Australian Open), Johannes Veerman (Nedbank Challenge), John Parry (AfrAsia Mauritius Open), and Callum Hill (Joburg Open). 

The 24-year-old Nakajima, a former Asia-Pacific Amateur champion, was the world number one amateur for a record 87 weeks between November 2020 and September 2022. In 2023, Nakajima won three titles on the Japan Tour, went on to top the Order of Merit, and earned a card to the DPWT 2024 season. 

In his first full season in Europe, Nakajima won the Hero Indian Open beating India’s Veer Ahlawat, Sweden’s Sebastian Soderberg and Johannes Veerman of the US. The three runners-up are all returning to have a shot at one of the oldest professional tournaments in the South Asia region. 

Nakajima is also hoping to emulate fellow Japanese Kenji Hosoishi, who became the first player ever to win the Hero Indian Open back-to-back in 1967 and 1968. Since then, Jyoti Randhawa (2006 and 2007) and Shiv Shankar Prasad Chawrasia (2016 and 2017) have also done so. 

Nakajima is not the only former top amateur in the field to have tasted success in India. The field also includes Ollie Schniederjans of the US, who was the world’s top amateur for 41 straight weeks in 2014-2015. Schniederjans recently ended a nine-year title drought winning the International Series India presented by DLF, held at the same venue. 

HIO 2025 will also feature another 24-year-old star, the prodigious Spaniard Eugenio Chacarra, who was the world no. 2 amateur in 2022, and has won two international titles. After a stint with LIV Golf as part of Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs GC, Chacarra is back in the DP World Tour ranks and had recorded two top-20 finishes from five starts this year. 

There will also as always be a strong home challenge with an eye on the host of benefits that come alongside the $ 2.25 million prize purse as Ahlawat proved last year.