Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Golf Association (HGA) and the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), the official sanctioning body of professional golf in India, on Tuesday announced the second edition of the Golconda Masters Golf Championship which will be held at the Hyderabad Golf Club from February 25 - 28, 2016, and will carry a prize purse of Rs. 40 lakh. The tournament will be preceded by a Pro-Am event on February 24th.
The tournament was inaugurated amidst much fanfare on Tuesday by the Honourable Deputy Chief Minister of Telangana Mohammad Mahmood Ali.
The tournament will witness participation by 120 leading professional golfers from India & its neighboring countries as well as six local amateurs. The top Indian professionals in the fray include Shubhankar Sharma, Khalin Joshi, Udayan Mane, defending champion Harendra Gupta, Rolex Ranking leader Feroz Ali Mollah, Mukesh Kumar, Shamim Khan, Shankar Das, and Abhijit Singh Chadha, to name a few. The foreign challenge will be led by the Sri Lankan trio of Anura Rohana, N Thangaraja, K Prabagaran and Australian Kunal Bhasin.
C Dayakar Reddy, Captain, HGA, said, “We welcome professionals from all over the country and overseas for the second edition of the Golconda Masters. An exciting contest lies in prospect at the Hyderabad Golf Club as the leading professionals of the South Asian region go head-to-head in pursuit of the prestigious Golconda Masters crown. We look forward to promoting professional golf in Hyderabad and the rest of Telangana, in partnership with the PGTI in the coming years.”
Capt. B L K Reddy, Hon. Secretary, HGA, said, “Golf fans in Hyderabad are in for a treat of some high-quality golfing action during the Golconda Masters. The staging of tournaments such as the Golconda Masters provides the ideal platform for the further growth of professional golf in Hyderabad and the rest of Telangana. We are confident the professionals will relish the playing conditions at the Hyderabad Golf Club. We wish them all the best.”
Uttam Singh Mundy, Director, PGTI, said, “We are confident that the second edition of the Golconda Masters will replicate the grand success of the inaugural edition. The city of Hyderabad is fast emerging as an important centre for golf in India thus providing PGTI the ideal launch-pad for staging professional events such as the Golconda Masters in this sports-loving metropolis. We seek to popularize golf tourism in the state in partnership with the Telangana Tourism Development Corporation and the HGA in the coming years.”
