The lush Beldih and Golmuri golf greens in Jamshedpur are ready for the Tata Steel Tour Championship to be held from December 16 to 19.

The Tata Steel Group and PGTI (Professional Golf Tour of India) 4-day sports event which offers a handsome prize purse of Rs 1.5 crore and will feature an elite field of 74 professionals.

The Tata Steel Tour Championship is Tata Steel PGTI season-ending event for the year 2020-2021. The tournament is a 72-hole stroke-play championship and there will be no cut applied. There is guaranteed prize money for all participants. The Pro-Am event preceding the tournament will be played on December 14.

The format for the event is as follows: In all the four rounds, half the field will play their first nine holes at Golmuri and second nine at Beldih while the other half will play their first nine at Golmuri and second nine at Beldih. From round two onwards, the leading/front half of the leaderboard (leading groups as per the scores) will play their first nine holes at Golmuri and second nine at Beldih. The prize presentation ceremony will be hosted on Sunday, December 19, at Beldih.

The tournament will feature a glittering field, including some of the biggest names in Indian golf such as defending champion Gaganjeet Bhullar (10 international wins), Jyoti Randhawa (9 international wins), Olympian SSP Chawrasia (6 international wins), Shubhankar Sharma (2 international wins) and Olympian Udayan Mane (2019 champion). The field will also feature the top-60 from the PGTI Order of Merit with the prominent names being PGTI Order of Merit leader Karandeep Kochhar, Rashid Khan, Khalin Joshi, Viraj Madappa, Chikkarangappa S, Yuvraj Singh Sandhu, Aman Raj, Veer Ahlawat and Manu Gandas, to name a few.

Two-time European Tour winner and former Asia No. 1 Shubhankar Sharma, returns to play in Jamshedpur after five years. Shubhankar, a European Tour regular, last played in Jamshedpur at the 15th Tata Open 2016, an event he went on to win. Sharma will also be playing a PGTI event for the first time since February 2020.

The tournament will decide the PGTI Order of Merit champion for the 2020-2021 Tata Steel PGTI season, a race which is likely to be a closely-contested one.

Sanjiv Paul, vice-President (Safety, Health and Sustainability), Tata Steel, said, “As an organization, we have always had a long and enduring commitment for Indian sports and been at the forefront in creating infrastructure and platforms that nurture and support sporting talent. Our association with the PGTI in 2019 to promote golf at the highest level, is a natural progression of this resolve.”

Uttam Singh Mundy, CEO, PGTI, said: “We thank Tata Steel for their continued support to PGTI through these tough times of the pandemic. The Tata Steel Tour Championship 2021, which will be aired Live for the first time, offers a visual treat for golf fans across the country as some of the biggest names of Indian golf. There is also the added excitement of the tournament deciding the PGTI Order of Merit champion for the 2020-2021 season, a contest which is likely to go down to the wire.”

As a curtain-raiser to the event, a putting contest featuring some leading Indian professionals will be organized at JRD Tata Sports Complex on December 15.