Kolkata: West Bengal Tourism seems well set to tee off, albeit with a difference! West Bengal Tourism has teamed up with the TATA Steel Professional Golf Tour of India (TATA Steel PGTI), the official sanctioning body of professional golf in India, and Tollygunge Club to come up with a new golfing event- the Bengal Open Golf Championship 2019. The whole idea is to leverage the golf tournament in promoting the state as top tourism destination. The Pro-Am event will carry a prize purse of Rs. 30 lakh.
The top Indian professionals who will be in the fray include SSP Chawrasia, four-time European Tour winner, Rahil Gangjee, a winner on the Japan Golf Tour & Asian Tour, Viraj Madappa, India's youngest winner on the Asian Tour, Rashid Khan, two-time Asian Tour winner, Aman Raj, Chiragh Kumar, Udayan Mane and Karandeep Kochhar, to name a few. Interestingly, all the three leading players in the field, SSP Chawrasia, Rahil Gangjee and Viraj Madappa, call Kolkata their home. And that's possibly another reason why West Bengal Tourism has got associated with the golf championship.
Besides India's leading professionals, the golf court will also feature professionals from countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Overall, the 2019 TATA Steel PGTI season's fourth tournament will witness the participation of 126 golfers, including 123 professionals and three amateurs. The foreign challenge will be led by the Sri Lankan trio of Anura Rohana, N Thangaraja and Mithun Perera as well as Bangladesh's Md Zamal Hossain Mollah.
