By IANS
Chandigarh : Defending champions India will start their campaign as favourites in the prestigious LG All India Open Amateur Golf Cup at the par-72 Chandigarh Golf Club beginning Monday.
All together, eight international teams will be vying for top honours in the 107th edition of the tournament.
India will be represented by top ranked player on the LG Indian Amateur Golf Tour Abhishek Jha, three-time winner in the current season and second ranked Manav Das, placed No.3 on the Order of Merit Gagan Verma and three-time Sri Lankan Open Amateur winner Simarjeet Singh.
However, the biggest threat to the hosts comes from Sri Lanka and Chinese Taipei.
While defending champion K. Prabagaran leads the Sri Lankan challenge along with LG Eastern India winner Mithun Pereira, Chinese Taipei have Chi-Hsien Hsieh and Tao Huang in their ranks. The other teams in the twin-format tournament are Nepal, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iran.
The tournament tees off with a two-day stroke play championship that will act as qualifying round. The top 64 players emerging from the qualifying round will be seeded and then they will battle it out in the match-play format with the 36-hole final slated for Jan 20.
The stroke play championship will also decide the Team Championship.
“The LG Indian Amateur Tour has been regularly attracting international players even during the other legs. In the coming season the new crop of juniors like Rahul Bakshi, Rashid Khan and Amanjyot Singh will also join the amateur ranks and hope that the Tour will be as competitive as the professional circuit and would rate one amongst the best in the world,” said Wg. Cdr. Satish Aparajit, secretary general of the Indian Golf Union.
Teams:
India: Gagan Verma, Manav Das, Abhishek Jha, Simarjeet Singh
Nepal: Tashi Ghale, Rupak Acharya
Malaysia: Akhmal Tarmizee Bin Mohd Nazari, Haziq Bin Hamizan, Edmund Jonathan Au, Muhammad Arie Bin Ahmad Fauzi
Sri Lanka: K. Prabagaran, Mithun Parera, K.A. Chandradasa, J.M.D Indika Lal Wickrematunge (team manager).
Pakistan: Muhammad Safdar Khan, Tariq Mehmood, Aadil Jehangir, Danyaal Jehangir,Muhammad Roheel (first reserve player), Sajid Khan (second reserve player),Salman Jehangir (private entry), Mohammad Omar Ghias (team manager)
Bangladesh: (Team A): Shahid Zamal, Hossain Mollah, (Team B): Md. Shakhwat hossain Shohel, Md. Liton Hawlader, A.K. Fazle Rabbi (team manager)
Chinese Taipei: (Team A): Chi-Hsien Hsieh, Tao Huang, (Team B): Chien-Yao Hung, Hao-Sheng Hsu, Yu-Sung Du (coach)
Iran: Ali Jome Gholizadeh Shehni, Mohammadreza Sheyni, Eraj Ghanbari Birgnai,Ahmad Gholi Bahadori Birgani, Saeid Barati, Hedayat Yazdi (coach), Shahram Beug Zadeh (supervisor), Ali mohammad Jafari Nasir (doctor), Alireza Morad Hajati (federation representative), Soltanmorad Ally (oil com. representative), Nasrolah Afshoun (supervisor).