PGTI returns to The Poona Club Golf Course after two years

Poona Club Golf Course will host the Poona Club Open golf tournament from November 6 - 9. The tournament sanctioned by the TATA Steel Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) carries a prize purse of INR 1 crore, the highest-ever for an event in Pune, according to a press release received from the organisers.

The tournament will feature leading Indian professionals such as DP World Tour regular Om Prakash Chouhan, Olympian and local lad Udayan Mane, 2024 TATA Steel PGTI Ranking leader Veer Ahlawat, Rashid Khan, Karandeep Kochhar, Shaurya Binu, Sachin Baisoya, Varun Parikh, Dhruv Sheoran and Shaurya Bhattacharya, to name a few.

The foreign challenge will be led by Czech Republic’s Stepan Danek, Bangladeshis Jamal Hossain, Badal Hossain, Md Akbar Hossain, Md Jakiruzzaman Jakir, Sri Lankans N Thangaraja, K Prabagaran, Andorra’s Kevin Esteve Rigaill, Nepal’s Subash Tamang, Canada’s Sukhraj Singh Gill, Japan’s Makoto Iwasaki and Americans Dominic Piccirillo and Digraj Singh Gill.

Poona Club Golf Course will be represented by professionals Rohan Dhole Patil, Pranav Mardikar, Akshay Damale, Pravin Pathare, Aaron Rockey, Gurki Shergill (a winner on the PGTI), Aditya Bhandarkar, Sameer M Shaikh, Rajiv Datar, Sandeep Phalnikar and Jaideep Patwardhan as well as amateurs Arkin Patil, Aditya Garg and Avneesh Somayaji.

Poona Club Open is a 72-hole stroke-play tournament featuring a field of 126 players including 123 professionals and three 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.

The first player to make a hole-in-one on the fourth hole will win himself a Nissan Magnite car.

“This event offers a unique opportunity for members to witness a golfing spectacle and provides exposure to junior and amateur golfers to professional play. Additionally, the tournament serves to showcase the Poona Club Golf Course as a premier championship venue in the country. I extend my best wishes to all participating players," Gaurav Gadhoke, President, The Poona Club Ltd., said.

Uttam Singh Mundy, CEO, PGTI, said, “Pune is today a major golfing centre in the country which regularly produces talented professional golfers. We thus strive to work in close association with The Poona Club Golf Course in making this tournament an important stop on the PGTI in the coming years.”