Priyanshu tops Pre Qualifying II as 25 enter final stage

By Rahul Banerji

Gurgaon’s Priyanshu Singh (69-73) topped the leaderboard at the PGTI’s Pre Qualifying II for the 2019 season after ending the second round with a total of two-under-142 at the Kensville Golf & Country Club near Ahmedabad on Wednesday.

From a total field of 99 in Pre Qualifying II, 25 players qualified for the Final Qualifying Stage with three ties in 23^rd place when the cut was declared at nine-over-153.

Priyanshu, who was the leader by two shots after the first round, mixed four birdies with two bogeys and a triple-bogey during his second round of one-over-73 to keep his lead intact.

Gurgaon-based amateur Karan Pratap Singh took a share of second place alongside Chandigarh’s Amrit Lal at one-under-143.

Pre Qualifying III will be staged from January 11 – 12, 2018.

Twitter to expand PGA live stream

The PGA Tour on Tuesday announced a renewed and expanded agreement with Twitter to distribute free nearly 140 hours of live competition from 28 tournaments during the 2018-19 season, it said in a statement.

The multi-year agreement will stream on Twitter the first 60 to 90 minutes from the morning hours of all four rounds of PGA Tour Live’s Over-The-Top on a global basis.

The addition of Saturday and Sunday morning coverage will result in the most live PGA Tour content ever offered on Twitter.

Involving the fans

In a nod to the Tour’s Fans’ First initiative, it is launching Fan Vote Fridays giving them a chance to vote via Twitter to determine one of the two featured groups to be showcased during Friday’s coverage for each tournament streamed on Twitter.

Fans will also have pre-tournament access with live streams from the driving range each week.

Twitter will begin live streaming at the Desert Classic in Palm Springs, California, on January 17 and 18. The four-round coverage on Twitter will begin at the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego and conclude in August at the season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta, where the FedExCup Champion will be crowned.

Global feed

The live coverage will be available globally on Twitter and can be found via @PGATOUR.

“The evolution of our streaming partnership with Twitter over the past three years has led to extraordinary feedback from our fans globally,” said Rick Anderson, chief media officer of the PGA Tour.

“We continue to reach an ever-growing young, diverse and loyal audience allowing us to expand and improve the product with live programming, real time highlights and video-on-demand content.”

“We’re thrilled to grow our lighthouse collaboration with the PGA Tour, bringing even more content to passionate golf fans around the globe,” said Kay Madati, vice-president andglobal head of content partnerships at Twitter.

‘Good response’

“We saw tremendous excitement and growth in 2018 around golf conversation and sponsor enthusiasm for PGA Tour content on Twitter.

“This year, we will reach and continue to serve highly engaged golf fans every day throughout the season by pairing those conversations with live programming and real-time highlights, all in one place on our platform.”

The PGA Tour and Twitter initially teamed up to live stream tournament coverage during the opening rounds of the first two events of the 2016 FedExCup Playoffs.

They formalised the live stream relationship in January 2017 with PGA Tour Live coverage from select events during the 2016-2017 season.

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