PGTI Tour: Top stars to fight for honours in Servo Masters Golf

Digboi (Assam): Some of the top golf stars of the country like Olympian Udayan Mane, Angad Cheema, Sachin Baisoya, Shaurya Bhattacharya and Dhruv Sheoran will battle it out for the top honours in the 24th edition of the Servo Masters Golf tournament to be played here from Wednesday.

Former champions Shankar Das, Shamim Khan, Honey Baisoya, and Harendra Gupta will also be in action in this premier golf tournament to be held under the aegis of the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) from November 20 to 23, at the picturesque Digboi Golf Links.

The prize purse for the event is more than Rs 80 lakh while the Pro-Am event will be held on Nov 24. The event will feature a field of 114 players including 111 professionals and three amateurs. The top 50 players and ties will make the cut after the second round.

The Servo Masters is the longest-running tournament on the Indian domestic circuit and on the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI). The tournament is well-established as North-East India’s premier professional golf event in terms of the prize money on offer, the strong field it attracts every year, the top-class playing conditions, and the high level of competition on display.

The 24th edition of the event will also feature prominent foreign professionals like Japan’s Makoto Iwasaki, Czech Republic’s Stepan Danek, Americans Dominic Piccirillo and Digraj Singh Gill, Canada’s Sukhraj Singh Gill, Sri Lankans N. Thangaraja and K. Prabagaran, Bangladeshis Jamal Hossain, Badal Hossain, Md Akbar Hossain and Md Jakiruzzaman Jakir.

The local challenge will be led by Digboi-based players including professionals Biren Karmakar, Deven Bhumij, Dulal Kalowar, Deepraj Chetia, Arun Gowala, and Sagar Thapa as well as amateurs Alok Barua, Devin Singh and Himanshu Nagar.

Uttam Singh Mundy, CEO, PGTI, said, “This year’s tournament promises to be an exciting affair with a strong field competing and looking to make gains in the TATA Steel PGTI Ranking race as the IndianOil Servo Masters will be the penultimate full-field event of the season.”

The venue, the picturesque Digboi Golf Links, is a golfer’s delight. The course is one of its kind in terms of ambiance as it is situated among the lush tea estates and thick forest of eastern Assam. The historic Digboi Golf Links is bordered by the Dehing forest reserve on three sides and the magnificent Patkai range of mountains on the fourth. This par-72 course with a yardage of 6329 could also be termed the best in the Northeastern part of the country due to its magnificent layout.