Greater Noida (Uttar Pradesh) [India], March 31 (ANI): The Adani Group and the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), the official sanctioning body of men's professional golf in India, will be jointly staging the inaugural Adani Invitational Golf Championship from April 1 to April 4 at the Jaypee Greens Golf and Spa Resort in Greater Noida.

The tournament offers a total prize purse of Rs 1.5 crore and marks PGTI's return to Jaypee Greens after 11 years. The main event will be followed by the Pro-Am event on April 5.

A curtain-raiser to the event was held on March 29 at The Belvedere Golf and Country Club, Ahmedabad. At this event, five leading Indian professionals conducted a golf clinic for children from the Adani International School in the presence of Pranav Adani, Director of Adani Enterprises Limited, and Kapil Dev, President of PGTI.

The Adani Invitational Golf Championship, beginning on April 1 at Jaypee Greens Golf and Spa Resort, will have a field of 126 players, including 124 professionals and two amateurs. The event will be played in the stroke-play format consisting of four rounds of 18 holes each. The top 50 players and ties will make the cut after two rounds. The par for the course is 72.

The stellar field at the tournament will feature leading Indian professionals Ajeetesh Sandhu, Om Prakash Chouhan, Yuvraj Sandhu, Shaurya Bhattacharya, Rahil Gangjee, Rashid Khan, Khalin Joshi, Udayan Mane, Shaurya Binu, Sachin Baisoya, Manu Gandas, Aman Raj, Karandeep Kochhar and Chikkarangappa S to name a few.

The foreign challenge will be led by Sri Lankans N Thangaraja and K Prabagaran, American Koichiro Sato, Bangladeshis Md Akbar Hossain, Jakiruzzaman Jakir, Md Razu and Md Somrat Sikdar, Nepal's Sukra Bahadur Rai and Subash Tamang, Czech Republic's Stepan Danek, Italians Michele Ortolani and Federico Zucchetti as well as Uganda's Joshua Seale.

The players representing Noida and Greater Noida include professionals Gaurav Pratap Singh, Amardeep Malik, Saptak Talwar, Arjun Sharma, Sudhir Sharma, Bipin Mukhiya, Dipankar Kaushal,Lakshya Nagar and Himanshu Nagar, as well as amateur Sukhman Singh.

Looking forward to the Adani Invitational, international winner Yuvraj Sandhu said, 'The Adani Group joining hands with the PGTI is very exciting news for Indian golf. On behalf of all the players, I would like to thank the Adani Group for their joint initiative with the PGTI that will help build the infrastructure for golf in the country. I eagerly await teeing-off at the Adani Invitational at Jaypee Greens, as it will be a landmark moment in Indian golfing history.'

Om Prakash Chouhan, international winner and former PGTI No. 1, said, 'I thank the Adani Group for partnering with the PGTI. The Adani Group coming on board the PGTI is a very encouraging sign for all of us Indian professionals and for the future of Indian golf. It's great to be back at Jaypee Greens after a long gap for the Adani Invitational. The impressive prize purse and the depth of the field make for a great week of golf.'

Olympian and former PGTI No. 1 Udayan Mane said, 'PGTI's association with the Adani Group, one of India's leading business houses, marks the beginning of a new chapter in Indian golf. We, as players, look forward to this partnership taking Indian golf to greater heights. An exciting contest is in the offing at Jaypee Greens, where we will have one of our strongest fields this year.'(ANI)