In what must be the most well-attended pro-ams in the history of the Hero Honda Indian Golf Tour, it was former Indian Open champion and No 3 player on the current Money List, Feroz Ali who led his team to victory in the pro-am of the Rs One million inaugural Tata Steel Open, which was played at the Beldih and Golmuri Club courses, in Jamshedpur, on Wednesday.
As many as 33 teams, comprising one professional and three amateur, teed off for the tournament, which was inaugurated by Rajkumar Pitamabar, a legendary name in Indian golf, in the presence of B Muthuraman, managing
director, Tata Steel, and Bushen Raina, managing director, Tinplate Company of India Ltd.
Feroz's team, comprising Vikram Singh, Alan J D'Souza and Tarun Daga, tallied 104 stableford points. Feroz contributed 32 points, while the lion's share came from D'Souza, who scored 38. Vikram Singh had 34 points.
There was a two-way tie for the second place at 103 points, between Rahul Ganapathy and Ashok Kumar's team. Ganapathy's team of B Muthuraman (34 points), Sunil Marwah (33 points) and S N Sinha (29 points) were adjudged first runner-up ahead of Ashok's team of Sandeep Singh (32 points), Bushen Raina (34 points) and SK Dhawan (16 points). The tie was broken on the basis of better fourth partner score, where Sinha outscored Dhawan.
The pro-am was played on the Stableford format, with nine holes at Beldih, followed by nine at Golmuri. The pro and the best two out of three amateur scores counted towards the team score.
In the individual prizes, Ms Shraddhanjali Singh, the only lady participant, walked away with the second best individual nett score prize. Shraddhanjali, who plays to a handicap of 15, scored 36 points and missed the top prize, bagged by Shashi Tiwari, by one point.
Alan J D'Souza, who had 38 points, was not eligible for individual prizes after becoming part of the winning team.
Among the professionals, Rafiq Ali of Kolkata returned the best card of the day, a five-under 65, which fetched him 41 stableford points.
Sanjay Kumar of Lucknow took the second best pro score prize with a two-under 68, or 38 stableford points.
R K Pitambar gave away the prizes during the championship dinner, which was hosted by sponsors Tata Steel at the Beldih Club in the evening.
The main four-day professional event tees off at 7:00 am simultaneously at the Beldih and Golmuri Club courses. The feature group of the day are No 1 Mukesh Kumar, twice Indian Open champion Ali Sher and Amritinder Singh (teeing off at Beldih at 7:18 am); Rahul Ganapathy, Feroz Ali and Praduman Guleria (teeing off at Beldih at 7:27 am) and Uttam Singh Mundy, Rafiq Ali and amateur Harmeet Sabharwal (teeing off at Beldih at 11:02 am).