CHENNAI: Even though their status didn’t go with the name of the circuit, amateurs had a place in the Professional Golf Tour of India. Mostly from the hosting clubs’ quotas, all tournaments featured a few of them and entry lists had ‘A’ written next to their names.
The number of amateurs usually didn’t exceed six in fields of 100-120, but some of them did make their presence felt. Like Karanjeet Kochar, who won an event in Kolkata last year. Or Bangladesh’s Mohammad Zamal, the first amateur winner of a PGTI event, in Dhaka in 2009.
From this season, amateurs will no longer be part of PGTI competitions. The Tournament Players Committee (TPC) of PGTI has decided that entry would be restricted to professionals, in order to secure more spots for them in the 20-odd events on its calendar. “The rule to have amateurs in these events was made long back. Adjustments had to be made.
With an increasing number of players turning pro these days, the TPC thought it would be better to increase slots for them, considering that our tournaments feature about 120 players rather than 140-150. It has taken a decision that from 2017, PGTI events will only be for pros,” PGTI director US Mundy told Express.
The former pro, who represented India in the World Cup of golf in the nineties, informed that leading professional Tours abroad don’t allow amateurs either. This means that Arjun Prasad, who made the Asian Tour cut from the final qualifying school event in Bangkok on Saturday, has to turn pro to play on the continent’s premier Tour.
The same will apply to the PGTI card secured by Kochar, for winning the Players Championship in November. He too has to turn pro to compete in the Tour run by India’s professional golfers. “It can take amateurs two-three years to get used to the demands of pro golf. Rishi Aman Raj, Abhijit Chadha and a few others have handled the transition well,” opined Mundy.
Under previous rules, mostly budding youngsters and club members who can’t turn pro because of other commitments took the slots reserved for amateurs. There was no prize money for them, not even for winning tournaments. A small window for amateurs still remains open, but for that they have to look up to sponsors of the events. “Sponsors have a quota to nominate players. If they want a promising amateur to be part of it, they can do that,” said Mundy.
atreyo@newindianexpress.com