Chennai Open Golf Championship from Tuesday

Top-flight golf returns to the city after four years with the Chennai Open Championship starting here on Tuesday featuring the country’s best golfers.

As part of the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) tour, the tournament will be held at the Tamil Nadu Golf Federation (TNGF) golf course, where 126 golfers, including 123 professionals and three amateurs, will participate, organizers said in a press release. See you here on Monday.

Last week’s PGTI event held in Coimbatore featured leading Indian experts like Karandeep Kochhar, Manu Gandas, Aman Raj and Shamim Khan along with defending champion Sri Lanka’s Mithun Perera, winner Khalin Joshi.

The local challenge comes from Sandeep Syal, C Arul, A Charles Ross, L Selvaraj, Pradyumna Prakash and S Prashanth from Chennai.

Also, along with Suman Ranjeet, three aspirants from Chennai include Indian Test cricketer Murali Vijay and state cricketer Anirudha Srikanth, son of former Indian captain Krish Srikanth.

The event offers a prize purse of ₹40 lakh. The Pro-Am event will be held on August 27.

Speaking to reporters, PGTI CEO Uttam Singh Mundy said, “PGTI has long awaited the city of Chennai, a major golf hub. The new venue, TNGF Golf Course is sure to offer new challenges. For the professionals. It’s going to be an amazing week of golf.” On his part, Karandeep Kochhar said he was looking forward to the challenge of playing on a new stage.

TNGF Honorary Secretary RK Jhaver said the players expected the course to be very challenging and “we are not expecting too many sub-par scores”.

Chennai Open is supported by Impegar Technologies, Amritanjan and Gujarat Tourism.