TATA Steel Tour C'ship: Season-ending golf event to offer prize purse of Rs 1.5 cr

The TATA Steel Tour Championship will happen at the Beldih and Golmuri golf courses in Jamshedpur from December 16 to December 19.

The event will offer a handsome prize purse of Rs 1.5 crore and will feature an elite field of 74 professionals. The TATA Steel Group and PGTI are hosting this Championship.

The TATA Steel Tour Championship is the season-ending event of the 2020-2021 TATA Steel PGTI season. The tournament is a 72-hole stroke-play championship and there will be no cut applied. There is guaranteed prize money for all participants. The Pro-Am event preceding the tournament will be played on December 14.

The format for the event is as follows: In all four rounds, half the field will play their first nine holes at Golmuri and second nine at Beldih while the other half will play their first nine at Golmuri and second nine at Beldih. From round two onwards, the leading/front half of the leaderboard (leading groups as per the scores) will play their first nine holes at Golmuri and second nine at Beldih. The prize presentation ceremony on Sunday, December 19, will be at Beldih.

The tournament will feature a glittering field including some of the biggest names in Indian golf such as defending champion Gaganjeet Bhullar (10 international wins), Jyoti Randhawa (9 international wins), Olympian SSP Chawrasia (6 international wins), Shubhankar Sharma (2 international wins) and Olympian Udayan Mane (2019 champion). The field will also feature the top-60 from the PGTI Order of Merit with the prominent names being PGTI Order of Merit leader Karandeep Kochhar, Rashid Khan, Khalin Joshi, Viraj Madappa, Chikkarangappa S, Yuvraj Singh Sandhu, Aman Raj, Veer Ahlawat and Manu Gandas, to name a few.

Two-time European Tour winner and former Asia No. 1 Shubhankar Sharma, returns to play in Jamshedpur after five years. Shubhankar, a European Tour regular, last played in Jamshedpur at the 15th TATA Open 2016, an event he went on to win. Sharma will also be playing a PGTI event for the first time since February 2020.

The tournament will decide the PGTI Order of Merit champion for the 2020-2021 TATA Steel PGTI season, a race which is likely to be a closely-contested one.

The two venues, Beldih & Golmuri golf courses, are both lush green, beautiful and very well-maintained, with the charming Dalma Hills in the background. While the 70-year-old Beldih Golf Course flaunts long fairways, Golmuri Golf Course is a smaller, greener, boutique course disallowing golfers any room for error.

As a curtain-raiser to the event, a putting contest featuring some of the leading Indian professionals has been organised on 15th December at the newly-inaugurated putting green at the JRD TATA Sports Complex, Jamshedpur.

( With inputs from ANI )