Pune,  The fifth edition of the Pune Open Golf Championship will be held at the Poona Club Golf Course from December 1-4, the organisers announced on Tuesday.

 

The tournament, which carries a prize purse of Rs 40 lakh, will be the last full-field event of the TATA Steel PGTI's 2020-2021 season before the season-ending TATA Steel Tour Championship. The Pro-Am event is scheduled for December 5.

The event will feature leading Indian names such as defending champion Kshitij Naveed Kaul, Manu Gandas, Yuvraj Singh Sandhu, Om Prakash Chouhan, Akshay Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Shamim Khan, and Amardeep Malik, to name a few.

The international challenge will be led by Sri Lankans Mithun Perera, Anura Rohana, N Thangaraja, and K Prabagaran, Bangladeshis Md Zamal Hossain Mollah and Badal Hossain as well as Australian Kunal Bhasin.

The host city of Pune will be represented by professionals Gurki Shergill (a former winner on PGTI), Pravin Pathare, Sameer M Shaikh, Rajiv Datar, Sagar Raghuvanshi, Jaideep Patwardhan, Sunil Baburao Galfade, and Rajaram Baburao Shinde as well as amateur Rohan Dhole Patil.

"This year there is the added excitement of the Pune Open being the final PGTI event before the season-ending Tour Championship later next month," PGTI CEO Uttam Singh Mundy said.

"With spots in the top-60 for the Tour Championship up for grabs, one can expect intense competition as the players would be vying for those spots and their exemption for next year," he added.

Notably, this 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.