Kolkata’s Anshul Mishra emerged as the overall winner of the 2024 Royal Junior Open, organised at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC) between May 28 and 29, with a practice round on May 27. A total of 81 participants (59 boys and 22 girls) took part in the third edition of the tournament (previous instalments were held in 2019 and 2022), with 20 per cent of the players coming from outside West Bengal, including representatives from Chandigarh, Jalandhar and Hyderabad. The youngest player was aged eight while the senior-most was 21 years.
Even though heavy rain, largely on account of Cyclone Remal, had preceded the tournament, the conditions during play were hot and dry for the most part. With 141, Mishra registered the best score of the tournament. Anaahat Bindra finished as overall runner-up and earned the distinction of being the closest to the pin. Ribhav Verma, who had the longest drive, was the overall second runner-up.
In the AA Boys’ category, Suveer Kapoor won after eight playoffs, with S.K. Jahir as the runner-up, while Sinjini Mukherjee took the win in the AA Girls’ category. The A Boys’ category saw Gurmehr Bindra come out on top (after two playoffs) with Kashish Khanna taking the spoils in the A Girls’ category. Rudraksha Banerjee and Petra Law were the respective runners-up. In the B Boy’s category, Ryan Sao triumphed, ahead of Manan Bagrecha, while the B Girls’ category was won by Dhanvi Patel, bettering Samaira Chitlangia.
The maximum birdies in AA, A and B categories were sealed by Anshul Mishra, with Andrew Baid and S.K. Jahir tying for eagles across the three categories.
In category C, Aranyak Chakraborty won among the boys, with Krishiv Rungta as runner-up, whereas Aarya Goyal led the girls, with Nahida Parvin in second. Ayaan Mimani and Vaanya Rustogi clinched their respective gender divisions for category D, while Kaveer Tulsyan (with Yugvardhana Singhania as runner-up) and Ojaswini Sarkar emulated them in category E.
Across categories C, D and E, Aranyak Chakraborty had the maximum pars with the most birdies coming from Nahida Parvin.
