The Coimbatore Golf Club: Top stars of the country, including Manu Gandas, Karan Pratap Singh, and defending champion Mukesh Kumar, will be in the fray in the third edition of the Tamil Nadu Open, which will be played from Tuesday to Friday (September 30 – October 3) at the Coimbatore Golf Club. The tournament carries a prize purse of INR 1 crore.The event will witness participation by 126 professionals. The leading Indian professionals in the field include Arjun Prasad (currently No. 2 in the PGTI Order of Merit), Manu Gandas, Karan Pratap Singh, Sankar Das, Abhinav Lohan, and defending champion Mukesh Kumar (winner of the last edition in 2009), to name a few.
The local challenge will be led by Coimbatore-based professional Sidhartha Sharathram. The other Tamil Nadu-based professionals in the field are the Chennai duo of S Prasanth and L Selvadurai.
The prominent foreign names competing include Sri Lankans N. Thangaraja and K. Prabagaran, Bangladeshis Jamal Hossain and Badal Hossain, Italy’s Federico Zucchetti, Nepal’s Subash Tamang, and American Koichiro Sato.
R. Gopinath, President, Coimbatore Golf Club, said, “With the monsoon winds starting to calm down, the Coimbatore Golf Course will be easier for scoring. The changes made to the course will add some degree of difficulty to the greens. Expect to see a lot of low scores.”
The Coimbatore Golf Club, nestled among the Nilgiri mountains, is a par-72, 6540-yard course. The Palghat Hills, part of the Western Ghats, form a scenic backdrop to the course. The playing experience is heavily influenced by the seasons. Strong Westerly winds during May to September make the course the most challenging. The winds ensure that the golfers have a tough battle on their hands. For an errant golfer, the course can be extremely unforgiving.
Article Source: IANS