The cream of Indian women’s golf will be back in action as the Hero Women’s Pro Tour resumes with the 11th Leg at the Delhi Golf Club. The field is huge with 46 players and the purse is a handsome sum of Rs14 lakh.
Led by the leader on the Order of Merit, Hitaashee Bakshi and last year’s No. 1 Sneha Singh, the field includes almost all the stars barring Diksha Dagar, Pranavi Urs and Vani Kapoor who have opted to rest before playing on the Ladies European Tour later this month.
Hitaashee and Sneha will need to contend with proven names like Tvesa Malik Sandhu, Amandeep Drall, Ridhima Dilawari, Neha Tripathi and Seher Atwal, all of whom have international experience and aspirations of going on to the LET and further.
While the Tour resumes after a gap of almost six weeks, the players have been playing in international events and some other domestic Pro-Ams. Sneha Singh who went to the United States has qualified for the second stage of the LPGA Qualifying while Hitaashee has been playing in South East Asia and was third at the Singapore Ladies Masters.
There are as many as nine amateurs and they are led by teenaged Zara Anand, who was recently T-10 at the Junior Asia Pacific Championships in Manila. Her teammate Keerthana Rajeev is also in the field.
The top amateur is Mannat Brar, who created history by becoming the first Indian to qualify for the semi-finals of the R&A Juniors in United Kingdom. She is also the current the All India Ladies Amateur champion, and she beat Zara in the final.
The competition will be keen as the flagship event in India, the Women’s Indian Open is scheduled next month and the top stars from the domestic Tour will get a spot in this prestigious event which is co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour and the Women’s Golf Association of India.