PUNE PATRIOTS TO THE FORE!
Atotal of 88 keen golfers teed off on a bright and sunny afternoon at the Poona Golf Course for the LLOYD Business Today Pro-Am of Champions. The Pune Golf course, one of the oldest in the country, has been around since 1920. Strategically positioned in a prime part of the city, the golf course is spread over 94 acres with wellmaintained fairways and very fast greens with interesting undulations and slopes.
Playing on this golf course calls for accuracy and the ability to play on tricky greens. While the water is in play in a few holes and the 38 bunkers offer challenges, the real test is to manage to keep out of the trees that line most of the fairways and holes. The golf course is one of the busiest courses in the Western part of India.
Played on the Stableford format with Double Peoria handicap system, the event witnessed some exciting golf with players competing for individual and team prizes.
The prize distribution ceremony, which took place over cocktails and dinner, was a nail- biting affair. Two teams were tied on identical scores. To break the tie, the scores of the highest- scoring member from each team were compared for better Back 9 and Back 6 holes. But still, there was a tie! Finally, the winners were decided on the basis of the better score on Back 3 holes.
The winning team, comprising Ajit Parmar (Kim Textile Engineering Pvt. Ltd), Sushant Khosla (Krom Infradevelopments Pvt. Ltd), Smita Atre (Wealth Engineering Services) and Pratap Shahane (Mphasis Ltd) with a combined score of
108 points, were crowned as the Pune Patriots and also earned themselves a place in the Pro-Am National finals, to be held in Delhi in March 2018.
The team comprising Abhijit Gangoli ( Demandshore Solutions), Raghav Aggarwal ( Chamundi Steels Pvt. Ltd), Dharmesh Karani ( Dharmesh Karani Associates) and B. S. Bakshi finished runners- up with 108 points.
In the individual category, Pratap Shahane ( Mphasis Ltd) with 39 points emerged the winner in the 15- 24 handicap category and Karthikeyan Krishnaraj ( Arkenea Technologies Pvt. Ltd) with 38 points won in the
0-14 handicap category.
Some of the other eminent golfers who participated among the corporate bigwigs of Pune included Chetan Gaglani, Accenture; Prakash Tolani, Siemens;
Vijay Chhabria, Finolex Plasson Industries Pvt. Ltd.; Arindam Ghosh, Reliance; Jinendra Munot, ZF Steering Gear; Manish Motwani, Kinetic Hyundai Elevator and Movement Technologies; Balrajsinh A. Parmar, Suzlon; Nikhil Bhargava, Stypack Polyfoams, and Wilson JS,
Tata Motors.
LLOYD is the Co-title sponsor; Indian Oil, the Fuelled By sponsor; VW Passat – the Automobile Partner; Nautica – Style Partner; Ballantine’s – Partner and Creatigies – the Marketing Partner of the event.