Golf Tours - Indian Golf Tour
The Indian PGA Golf Tour is a
professional golf tour for men based in India. World Ranking Points are
not available on the tour, which means that it is not one of the top
nine men's tours in the world.
India's Royal Calcutta Golf Club was founded in 1829 and is usually
regarded as the oldest outside the United Kingdom. In the early years
Indian golf with dominated by British players and it was not until 1949
that Mohinder Bal became the first Indian to win the All-India Amateur
Championship. The Indian Golf Union (IGU) was founded in 1955 to take
over responsibility for Indian Golf, which had previously been largely
in the hands of the Royal Calcutta Golf Club. The sport was still
dominated by amateurs at that point, but most of them were now Indian.
In 1957 the IGU started a training program for caddies and
professionals. In 1964 the Indian Open (open that is to both amateurs
and professionals), was established and it soon replaced the All-India
Amateur as the leading golf tournament in the country. Australian five
time British Open champion Peter Thomson used to stop over in India on
his way from Australia to Europe, and he won the Indian Open in 1964,
1966 and 1976. In 1970 the Indian Open became part of the Asian Golf
Circuit, the predecessor of the Asian Tour. In 1991 Ali Sher became the
first Indian to win the Indian Open. Combined with the launch of the
Asian Tour a few years later, which gave Indian players a more
accessible route to international competition, Sher's win made
professional golf a much more attractive career option in India.
The Professional Golfers Association of India was founded in 1994, and
several additional professional events were founded in India in the
1990s. Since 1997 the Indian Golf Tour has been managed by Tiger Sports
Marketing on behalf of the Professional Golfers Association of India.
Total prize money for the 2004/05 season was 30,500,000 Indian rupees
(($698,260 at 31 December 2004 exchange rate). There are around 20
events in the season, including tournaments in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri
Lanka. The Indian Open is an Asian Tour event.
The Indian Tour is a feeder tour for more prestigious tours such as the
Asian Tour. A small number of Indian players have become members of the
world's top two tours, the European Tour and the U.S. based PGA Tour.
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Golf_Tour
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