Panasonic Open set for India swing at Delhi Golf Club

By Rahul Banerji

The Delhi Golf Club will host the eighth edition of the $400,000 Panasonic Open India that gets under way on Thursday with an experienced field, and some new faces.

Part of the pan-Asian Panasonic Swing, the event will see leading home stars including defending champion Shiv Kapur up against a field with entrants from 17 other countries.

Co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour and the Professional Golf Tour of India, the Panasonic Open India has seen many first-time winners continental including Anirban Lahiri, Digvijay Singh, S.S.P. Chawrasia, Chiragh Kumar and Mukesh Kumar.

Home boy

Kapur, 36, topped the inaugural Panasonic Swing ranking with 2922.90 points last year thanks largely to his first Asian Tour victory on home soil and a second win in 2017.

The defending champion went on to win his fourth Asian Tour title at the Royal Cup in Thailand a month later.

He also became the first and only one to win three times on the region’s premier Tour that season.

The field also includes Viraj Madappa, the youngest Indian winner on the Asian Tour as well as two-time Asian Tour winners Jazz Janewattananond and Panuphol Pittayarat of Thailand. 

Three amateurs will make the switch to professional golf at the Panasonic Open India.

Jakarta Asiad contestants Kshitij Naveed Kaul and Aadil Bedi will be joined by Yuvraj Sandhu in the money-making ranks and will want to make an early impression in the hoary premises of the DGC.

Tough conditions

However, the field will not have it easy.

While the fairways and roughs are in the words of local boy Shiv Kapur, “as close to perfect as I can remember”, the greens are another matter altogether.

The unseasonal rains in August and September played havoc with the putting surfaces where fortunes will be made and broken.

Despite obvious and clearly heroic efforts to limit the damage, almost all the 18 greens are patchy with bits of transplanted sod fitted to cover extra-bare areas.

The grass has not had enough time to grow and there are splotches of sand and bare earth that will make reading of lines and pace seriously difficult. They are in effect and essence, a lot like temporary greens.

Nerves and fortitude will be tested for sure.

We certainly had a heck of a time at Tuesday’s Pro-Am.

The terrible trio with our professional, Shaktawat Sohel of Bangladesh (second from right) who is 11th in the Asian Development Tour Order of Merit.

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