By Rahul Banerji
India’s first-ever mixed professional event tees off in the form of the Ballantine’s Golf Championship Mixed Pro Challenge at the DLF ‘s Gary Player layout on Tuesday.
The innovative competition has created a buzz among the men and women professionals participating and will be watched keenly as a model for more such events.
The tournament will feature men and women professional golfers from the Professional Golf Tour of India and the Women’s Golf Association of India and be played over 36 holes in the next two days.
Eighteen teams comprising one lady professional and two gentlemen professionals each will compete in the Rs 30 lakh Ballantine’s Mixed Challenge.
The format is team stroke play where all players must hole out on every hole. The two best scores out of three on each hole (hole by hole) will count towards the team score.
Top names from both associations are in the fray.
They include Udayan Mane, Khalin Joshi, Karandeep Kochhar, Yuvraj Singh Sandhu, Veer Ahlawat, Kshitij Naveed Kaul, Gaurika Bishnoi, Vani Kapoor, Jahanvi Bakshi and Ridhima Dilawari, to name a few.
Yuvraj Singh Sandhu, a two-time winner on the PGTI who is currently second on the PGTI Order of Merit, was all praise for the new initiative.
Ideal platform
The 25-year-old Yuvraj said, “Both men and women professionals coming together to play an event is great news for the Indian golf fraternity.
“It’s the ideal platform for both to interact with each other. We will get to learn about each other’s tours.
“I’m looking forward to my first mixed event. Sharing the team’s responsibility is a very different feeling altogether. It is going to be fun but you’re also responsible towards your team.
“My team members are Gaurika Bishnoi and Sunit Chowrasia. This is Gaurika’s home course so we’re depending on her.
“Sunit is a great ball-striker and putter. So I feel our team stands a very good chance. The challenge at this course would be placing the ball well in the fairway.”
Ridhima Dilawari, a multiple winner on the WGAI, who plays at the host venue the DLF Golf & Country Club, is one of the leading women professionals competing this week.
Rare opportunity
Ridhima said, “I’m looking forward to getting an opportunity to play with the guys and learn a few things from them.
“A big thank you to Ballantines for putting together this event. I’m really excited to be a part of this event.
“The format’s very different from what we usually play. We’re focused on our own game so it will be nice to partner with others and bounce off their energy.
“My team partners are Mukesh Kumar and Digvijay Singh, two of India’s golfing greats. It’s an honour to play alongside them and hope I can pick up a few things from them.
“DLF is one of the top tracks in the country, so it’s always fun to come back here and play.”
The seasoned Amardeep Malik, a two-time winner on the PGTI, is also excited about teeing it up at this unique event.
Amardeep said, “It’s a fun format with a different set of challenges. All players are looking forward to these two days of intense team competition. It would be interesting to see how this goes.
“Abhinav Lohan and Rhea Saravanan are my team partners. We played our practice round together today and tried to figure out the best way to go ahead with our game.
“Our team strategy is to just attack, so we’re going to play solid attacking golf.
“A big shout out to Ballantine’s. They’ve done a fantastic job in making this event possible.”
College experience
Shweta Mansingh is another top lady professional at the event who will look to draw from her experience of playing team events in college golf.
“It’s super exciting. We’ve been looking forward to an event like this for a couple of years and now that the week’s here it should be a lot of fun,” said Shweta.
“DLF is always in amazing shape and it brings the best out of your game.
“I played a lot of team events in college golf so it feels like a pretty familiar situation for me.
“My team-mates are Udayan Mane and Dhruv Sheoran. I’ve played with Dhruv before but will be playing alongside Udayan for the first time.
“Udayan’s an Olympian and has been one of India’s leading pros in recent times so it’s going to be an honour to play with him. Hope we’re up there in contention because I’ve got a good feeling.”
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