Seher, Vani, Pranavi among favourites at BPGC leg of Hero WPGT

By Rahul Banerji

Seher Atwal will be out to build on her flying start to the season at the Rs.12 lakh second leg of the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour in Mumbai on Wednesday.

While Seher won the first event last week, she will face far stiffer opposition at Bombay Presidency Golf Club with Amandeep Drall, Vani Kapoor and Pranavi Urs all back in the field.

Pranavi was Order of Merit winner last season with five wins from 13 starts.

Seher has won at least once in each of the last three years, including at Pune last week. This consistency also saw her finish second on the Hero Order of Merit in 2022. She was fourth in 2020-21.

Thw 24-year-old is scheduled to play her first Ladies European Tour event of 2023 at the Magical Kenya Ladies Open in the first week of February, where she will join Aditi Ashok, Diksha Dagar, Amandeep and Vani.

Amandeep and Vani are looking to get match sharp ahead of the 2023 LET season as well.

Both had fair success in 2022 with the former coming within a whisker of a breakthrough win at the Hero Women’s Indian Open, where she was the runner-up. She was also seventh at the Swiss Ladies Open.

Vani was tied third at the Big Green Egg Open in the Netherlands and T8 at the Hero Women’s Indian Open.

Bags of experience

The experienced Vani won the Hero Order of Merit three years in a row from 2014 to 2016, while Amandeep was the topper in the combined 2020-21 season, when Vani was second.

For Seher, this could be a big season as she ventures out of India for the first time to play on the Ladies European Tour.

Most of her previous LET starts have been at her home event, the Hero Women’s Indian Open. After playing the event as an amateur a few times, she made the cut in both 2019 and 2022.

Given her limited status, a few good finishes could get Seher into more events.

Other players looking for good results early in the season would be Ridhima Dilawari and Sneha Singh.

Round one tee times

8:30 am: Nishna Patel (A), Ridhima Dilawari, Rhea Purvi Saravanan

8:40 am: Sneha Singh, Shagun Narain, Anaggha Venkatesh

8:50 am: Vidhatri Urs (A), Asmitha Sathish, Lakhmehar Pardesi

9 am: Amandeep Drall, Pranavi Urs, Ravjot K Dosanjh

9:15 am: Anousha Tripathi, Khushi Khanijau, Agrima Manral

9:25 am: Seher Atwal, Afshan Fatima, Sachika Singh

9:35 am: Nayanika Sanga, Shweta Mansingh, Rhea Jha

9:45 am: Vani Kapoor, Jyotsana Singh, Suchitra Ramesh

10 am: Anisha Agarwalla, Karishma Govind, Rishika Muralidhar (A)

10:10 am: Disha Kavery, Jasmine Shekar, Saaniya Sharma

10:20 am: Ishvari Prasanna, Ananya Datar, Geetika Ahuja

Also read: Seher survives tense Pune finish for winning start to 2023 season