Ghai team emerge winner at Indian Invitational Golf

DUBAI: Emirates Golf Club (EGC) hosted the 28th Edition of the Indian Invitational Golf Tournament this past weekend.

The unique format sees teams of four compete across both the Majlis and Faldo courses, with each team playing nine holes on the Majlis and nine holes on the Faldo.

With a variety of team prizes, on course events, on course F&B stations and raffle prizes available, a large field of 173 avid golfers gathered ready to compete.

The team of Achal Ghai, Gurjit Grewal, Rohit Gupta and Kenny Babcock were crowned Indian Invitational Champions 2020 after a superb score of 89 points across the Faldo front nine and Majlis back nine. Their superb round included birdie two’s for all players on the Faldo Par 38th.

In runners-up spot was Rajinder Razdan, Anish Bhatia, Mags Breen and Tony Breen with a score of 89 also, just missing out on victory with fewer points on the back nine. In third place with a score of 88 was Arjun Manghnani, Jon Phillips, Shane Wilson and Micky Chopra.

The rest of the prizes were broken down into Group A (Majlis front nine, Faldo back nine) and Group B (Faldo front nine, Majlis back nine).

In Group A, Peter Jamieson, Gary Black, Gurbax Singh and Satnam Kaur won with a score of 88 points. They were in fact unlucky to miss out in the main categories due to their back nine. Runner up in Group A was Rekha Bandopadhyay, Vipen Sethi, Barney Coleman and Rhys James with a score of 82 points.

In Group B, the team of Suresh Shewakramani, Ashok Sindhu, Chandru Manghnani and Anthony Louis claimed victory with a score of 87 points. Just a shot back in runner up spot were Vikas Sachar, Anil Ahluwalia, Anne Bouigue and Alex Bouigue with a score of 86 points.

During the prize giving, General JJ Singh, retired Chief of the Indian Army, spoke to the crowd and thanked them for their participation.

Meanwhile, this weekend there were some talented juniors battling it out on the fabulous Fire Course to be crowned junior champion.

Viggo Sorensen was victorious following a playoff after finishing on a five under par 67 which was equaled by Natali Gupta, the duo went back to the 1st on the Fire course and it took four attempts of hole 1 for Viggo to be crowned champion holing a birdie putt with barely any daylight remaining. Winning the boys best gross was Bonnen Clark closely followed by Josh Bibby. The boy’s net prize was won by Jay Chinchankar with the net runner up Emanuel Gallepini.

The girl’s gross winner was Natali Gupta with 67 followed by Sakura Kawakami on 70. Net Champion with a score of 72 was Kate Bibby

The final awards went to Chantal El Chaib for her efforts on the 2nd hole with nearest to the pin leaving Natali Gupta with nearest to the pin on hole 11.