Hero Indian Open now part of DP World Tour’s ‘Asian Swing’

By Rahul Banerji

The Hero Indian Open will be the second leg of the DP World (European) Tour’s 2024 Asian Swing with confirmation that it will be played at DLF Golf & Country Club from March 28 to 31.

India’s national open will be the second of five events comprising the Asian Swing as part of the new-look 2024 Race to Dubai, the tour said in a statement.

In seeking to innovate its offerings, the tour has created five Global Swings each with its own identity.

The player with the most points in each swing will earn $200,000 from an overall $ 1 million bonus pool and qualify for the final set of tournaments called the “Back 9 events”. 

So far, the tour is nearing the end of the “Opening Swing” that began with the Australian PGA Championship in Brisbane last month and closes with the Mauritius Open that tees off on Thursday.

The International Swing which begins with the Dubai Invitational on January 11 and ends at the Jansson Workwear Open in South Africa on March 10 is next followed by the Asian Swing.

Between March 23 (Saudal Open, Antwerp) and the BMW International Open ending on July 7 in Munich, the DP World Tour will host its European Swing followed by the Closing Swing between July 11 (Scottish Open) and August 25 (Danish Championship).

Season-ender

The Closing Nine winds up the season as the name suggests. It will open with the British Masters on August 29 and end with a yet-to-be-decided event that will run from October 24 to 27.

The Asian Swing begins with the Singapore Classic from March 21 to 24, and includes India, Korea (Korea Championship), the ISPS Handa Championship in Japan, and finally China for the returning Volvo China Open.

The Hero Indian Open returned to the Race to Dubai in February 2023 for the first time post-Covid since 2019 as Germany’s Marcel Siem ended a near nine-year wait for a tour win with an emotional victory in Gurgaon. 

The event will celebrate its 57th edition in 2024 and extend Hero MotoCorp’s relationship with the European Tour that began at the 2015 staging of the event.

Since then, the company has also supported the Hero Challenge, as well as the Hero Cup and the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, which will be the first Rolex Series event of 2024.

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