By Rahul Banerji
India’s Zara Anand held a share of the opening day lead at the 44th Queen Sirikit Cup in icy conditions in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Wednesday.
Noida-based Zara, runner-up at the last National Games, was alongside Chinese Taipei’s Chun-Wei Wu, the reigning Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific champion, and Japan’s Aina Fujimoto on 1 over par 73 at the Clearwater Golf Club.
The Indian Golf Union brought Zara into the team, following the withdrawal of 2023 Sirikit Cup winner Avani Prashanth, who is playing in the US. Avani became the first Indian to win individual honours at the Queen Sirikit Cup in Manila.
The players faced icy conditions in the morning and the start was delayed due to frost, making for tough scoring conditions.
The three leaders were a stroke ahead of Shihyun Kim of Korea, Chinese Taipei’s Ping-Hua Hsieh, New Zealand’s Eunseo Choi and Australian Sarah Hammett.
Well-placed
Vidhatri Urs (79) was tied for 20th place and Heena Kang (85) was T32, leaving India in sixth place on the team table.
Chinese Taipei led with a 3-over-total made up of the two best scores from each team of three players. They were three shots clear of hosts New Zealand and pre-tournament favourites, South Korea.
Australia and Japan were a further shot behind, with India in sole sixth on 6-over par.
Zara, runner-up at the All India Ladies Amateur, and a third place finisher at the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour event, dropped a shot early but recovered with a birdie before the turn.
On the back nine, successive bogeys pushed Zara back but she made up one shot on the closing hole.
Chun-Wei had three birdies and four bogeys in the middle of the round while Fujimoto also had three birdies against four bogeys.
IGU inks sponsorship deal
Meanwhile, the Indian Golf Union has received funding of Rs 2 crore which it will utilise in improving grassroots programmes.
These include strengthening the National Golf Academy of India growth of the sport in Northeast India, amongst others, the sport’s national governing body said.
Bharat Golf, helmed by professional golfer Manav Jaini is bringing in the funds that will help IGU “to produce champions of the future and attract more youngsters to the sport”, it added.
The IGU had lost sponsors like Rolex and YES Bank in the last few years due to a number of cases involving control of the body, and derecognition by the sports ministry for not following the National Sports Code, 2011 in conducting free and fair elections.
However, the current governing council revived the corpus the national sports federation was lacking by partnering with the Royal & Ancient (R&A), world golf’s rules body, and the sports ministry.
Big challenge
“The biggest challenge was funds. To be able to undertake any initiative we needed funds,” IGU president Brijinder Singh said in the statement.
“I am happy to share that in the last one year, we have been able to tap various sponsors and also government bodies to help us build up a sizeable corpus.
“We can now plan various activities to grow the game of golf in India. We are working very closely with the R&A and are tapping into their resources to put a growth plan in place,” he added.
In the last one year, the IGU re-introduced the National Squad system, began collaborating with European coaches’ bodies to strengthen the NGAI and sent amateur teams to 20 overseas tournaments for much-needed exposure.
Also read: Lahiri returns to the Hero Indian Open, enhanced purse on offer
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