Indian Open golf put off due to virus

NEWDELHI: The spread of coronavirus has led to the postponement of the $1.75 million Hero Indian Open, one of the country’s biggest individual prize money events.

Scheduled at Gurugram’s DLF Golf and Country Club from March 19-22, the sanctioning bodies—indian Golf Union, European and Asian Tours are now looking at rescheduling the event later in the year. Before moving to the European Tour in 2015, the Indian Open had an October window but in view of a packed calendar in Asia and Europe in the second half of the year, plans will have to be drawn carefully.

After Wednesday’s announcement, the Indian Open becomes the fourth event in men’s professional golf to be put on hold due to the virus outbreak. The European Tour had earlier postponed the Maybank Championship in Malaysia and Volvo China Open, both in April. This week’s Kenya Open was put off too.

Ever since the outbreak, there was uncertainty over the Indian Open. With the government extending curbs on the entry of citizens from Spain, Germany and France on Wednesday, to add to the existing list of nations, it became a decisive factor behind the postponement.

The hopes of home golfers aiming to make the Olympics will take a hit as the Indian Open carried major world ranking points. The gap between Rashid Khan, Udayan Mane— the top two names as per the latest Olympic rankings— and aspirants like Shubhankar Sharma, Shiv Kapur, Gaganjeet Bhullar and Anirban Lahiri is not much and a winner next week from among these names would have stirred up the race to Tokyo.