India's best golfers for SRF Open

The Wills Sport Indian Golf Tour moves into its 21st leg with the oldest tournament in Indian professional golf, the SRF Open, beginning at the historic Delhi Golf Club on Tuesday.

The main tournament, sponsored by SRF Ltd, will be played from April 3 to 6. A gala pro-am, hosted by www.materialonline.com, will bring the curtain down on the event on Saturday.

This year's SRF Open will be the 27th edition of the tournament and will be managed by the Delhi based Tiger Sports Marketing. The prize money for the tournament stands at Rs 850,000, with the winner getting to take home a whopping cheque of Rs 137,700. A second place finish will fetch Rs 95,200.

The star attractions of the tournament will be Jyoti Randhawa, the second ranked golfer on the Asian PGA Tour in 2000, and Arjun Atwal, the reigning Hero Honda Masters champion. However, a battle royale is also expected between the current leader of the Order of Merit on the Wills Sport Indian Golf Tour, Vijay Kumar, and the winner of 'Player of the Year' award last season, Mukesh Kumar.

Also in action will be Shiv Prakash, the third ranked golfer on the Indian Tour; Feroz Ali, winner of the 1998 Indian Open; regulars on the Asian PGA Tour such as Arjun Singh, Vivek Bhandari, Amritinder Singh and Indrajit Bhalotia, winner of this season's Wills Southern Open. Twice Indian Open winner Ali Sher, golfer in line to win this season's 'Rookie of the Year' award, Rahul Ganapathy, and a number of other big names such as Uttam Singh Mundy, Basad Ali, Harmeet Kahlon, Shiv Shankar Prasad Chowrasia, veteran Rohtas Singh and Sanjay Kumar will also contend for the top spot.

Another highlight of the tournament will be Gaurav Ghei's return to professional tour after almost five months of inaction due to a hernia operation, which turned septic.

SRF Ltd, under the flagship of Dr Bharatram, one of Indian golf's biggest supporters, is fast emerging as a major global player in its chosen business of nylon tyre cord and refrigerant gasses. It leads the Indian market in both the segments and is currently the seventh largest manufacturer of nylon tyre cord in the world.

www.materialonline.com, the premier portal for the purchase of B&C category items for companies in India, will host the pro-am. The site offers the customer a one-stop shop for purchases and provides a complete solution from order to payment to complete transactions, thus resulting in significant price savings.

The historic Delhi Golf Club, with its exquisitely maintained course, lends a unique ambience to the proceedings. The magnificent greens are bordered by well-placed roughs and bushes, which test the skills of the best in the business. In short the coming week is going to witness not just top golfers pitting their skills against each other but also a hard fought battle between the golfers and the course.