By Rahul Banerji
The PGA Tour has its Asian Swing. The European Tour on Thursday announced it would return to full-time action post-lockdown with a UK Swing. And now, we have an India Swing as well.
Sunday’s Hindustan Times reported that the European and Asian Tours had all but finalised three tournaments in a row – the Panasonic Open India, a new event at the Delhi Golf Club and the Hero Indian Open – that will run between October 15 and November 1.
The paper’s golf writer, Robin Bose, noted that the three events will offer a combined total of $2.45 million to the field. The prize purse is $400,000 for the Panasonic Open, $300,000 (tentative) at the DGC Open, and $1.75 million at the Hero Indian Open, which also sees European Tour participation.
The first two are co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour and the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI).
Dates set
Tournament dates, the HT said, had been set as October 15 to 18 (Panasonic Open India), October 22 to 25 (DGC Open) and October 29 to November 1 (Hero Indian Open).
The three events will be played at the Classic Golf and Country Club, the Delhi Golf Club and DLF Golf and Country Club respectively.
With the PGTI calendar still suspended since the Bengal Open concluded in Kolkata on March 15, making it the last major tournament played worldwide, Sunday’s news will have come as a relief to Indian pros in particular.
Till even date, there is no clarity when either the men’s or women’s pro tours will resume in India with the government moving extremely cautiously on reopening the country in stages from the pandemic lockdown that cme into force on March 24.
Such being the case, news that some – any – professional golf has actually found set date comes as a bonus for all concerned.
The dates are yet to reflect on the calendar but will be announced as soon as technicalities are firmed up, the HT report said.
European move
Three days ago, European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley said, ““Since the suspension of our 2020 season in early March, we have taken a measured approach in reassessing our schedule, informed every step of the way by our medical advisers and government guidance.
“We have consistently said that safety is our absolute priority and that is why today we are announcing our resumption in two months’ time supported by a comprehensive health strategy which has been led by our medical team.
“Initially, therefore, based on the expert guidance we received, playing in clusters, in one territory, is the best option in terms of testing, travel and accommodation.”
Such cautious thinking will also prevail on the India Swing, as it has been named.
Keeping it together
“Stringing several events together in India is one of our goals,” Asian Tour commissioner and chief executive Cho Monn Thant was quoted by the paper as saying from Singapore.
“It would be extremely beneficial if we can stage the Panasonic Open India and the re-scheduled Hero Indian Open in close proximity. We are currently working on this and there is also a possibility of adding one more event to make up an India swing.
“We are trying to re-shuffle events from their original dates to make travel as convenient as possible for our players and officials.
“The key is to try and reduce the amount of cross-border movement from each country in the short term so we are speaking with tournament owners to encourage them to allow us to group tournaments in the same countries together,” he added.
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