Golfers Aakarsh Choubey and (above) Bhushan Kapoor on the greens of Patna Golf Club on Wednesday. Pictures by Jai Prakash

Patna, Aug. 3: The Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) made its debut in the state capital today with the staging of the fifth event in its Feeder Tour for 2011.

The three-day event, which is being organised at Patna Golf Club from August 3 to 5, carries a total prize money of Rs 6 lakh.

The tournament has a pool of 72 players and Mohammed Islam and Mohammed Nawab are leading the local challenge for Patna. Among other professionals who are taking part in the three-day event are Patna’s Varun Sahay, Aakarsh Choubey and Shashi Ranjan Sinha and Calcutta’s Rafick Ali Mollah, a former winner at Patna Golf Club.

The participants will play the game over three rounds of 18 holes each with the cut being applied after 36 holes. One round (18 holes) is played for a day. After two days of 18 holes each, 36 players will compete for the finals on Friday. With today being the trial round, the participants played at different grounds at Patna Golf Club. The prize amount will also be distributed among the final 36 players.

An organiser of the tournament said: “This tournament is a mini-Professional Golf Tour of India. Of the 72 players participating in the event, the main competition will be among 36 players, among whom the prize money will be distributed.”

The winner of the three-day tournament will get Rs 76,290, followed by the runner-up receiving a handsome Rs 60,000. The prize amount will go down as the players’ final position in the top 36 after the competition. The organisers added that the top 60 ranked players at PGTI are not competing for the tournament, which is only open to players ranked 61 and below.

Karan Vasudeva of Delhi was at the lead at the end of Round One today.

Padamjit Sandhu, the director of PGTI, said: “We are excited about making our first appearance in the city and expanding the reach of our tour. The joint efforts of the PGTI and the Patna Golf Club have facilitated the return of professional golf to Patna after a gap of seven years. We seek to strengthen the foundations of the sport in Bihar in partnership with the Patna Golf Club in the coming years.”

Sandhu said the tournament is just the beginning and in coming days more such tournaments will be organised in the state capital, where there are a number of golf enthusiasts.

The Patna Golf Club, established in 1916 and spread over an area of 101 acres, has narrow fairways, some challenging water hazards and rare species of trees.

Governor Devanand Konwar is the chief patron of Patna Golf Club while Justice Shivakirti Singh is the president of the club. Mohit Ahluwalia is the secretary of the club and Tapan Ghosh the club captain.

This is not the first golf tournament played at the Patna Golf Club in recent times. Around 250 golfers had participated in the three-day 38th Patna Annual Golf Championship, which was organised at the club in February. Participants had from Patna, Danapur, Calcutta, Delhi, Jamshedpur, Jamalpur, Ranchi and Varanasi.