Indian Masters to provide platform

Dubai: The EMAAR-MGF Indian Masters will be played as a tri-sanctioned event, with the European Tour, Asian Tour and the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) combining to present the country's richest ever golf tournament.

The $2.5 million (Dh9.5 million) event will be hosted by the Delhi Golf Club between February 4-10 and both the PGTI and golf in Dubai (gID), organisers and promoters of the event, announced yesterday that a minimum of 25 spots will be allotted to home-grown players to help Indian professional golf go international.

The tournament courted controversy initially after gID got the event sanctioned by the European Tour and the Indian Golf Union (IGU). This angered the Asian Tour, with its Chairman Kyi Hla Han dubbing the move an "invasion" by the European Tour.

Had the tournament been sanctioned by the European and Asian Tours, the number of Indian golfers teeing off at the event would have stood at a maximum of 10, which would be against the objectives of gID, which wanted to give Indian golfers maximum exposure.

Solved amicably

But the issue has been solved amicably, with gID getting the nod from all parties concerned to make space for 25 Indians, who will get the chance to rub shoulders with the cream of the golfing world, including stars like Ernie Els, Lee Westwood, Thomas Bjorn and Indian ace Jeev Milkha Singh.

The move, according to Mohammad Juma Bu Amim, vice-chairman and CEO of golf in Dubai, will provide up-and-coming Indian pros with some invaluable experience.

Bu Amim said: "We want to build the EMAAR-MGF Indian Masters on a powerful foundation and working with the PGTI is a key step that will ensure this happens.

"So they're happy and we're happy and that's important because we both want to achieve our goals. We wanted to do a tournament with the European Tour, but a tournament without Indian players would not work because it is their country and they have the right to be a part of it and some of our ambassadors advised that it would be better to have Indian players playing."

Gautam Thapar, president of the PGTI, said: "Both the PGTI and golf in Dubai have objectives that are parallel to each other. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before we collaborated in a positive way and moved forward collectively.

"We are impressed with the commitment that golf in Dubai has made to the IGU and admire the way they promote the game through their Shaikh Maktoum Golf Foundation.

"The Indian Tour is very small right now and this is the first major event and we hope this is just the first in a long line of events to come."