Indian golfers benefitting from partnerships with foreign tours: Vani Kapoor

Gurugram, Oct 24: Indian golfer Vani Kapoor navigated the demanding DLF Golf & Country Club with ease utilising her local knowledge of the Black Knight layout to take the lead in the Hero Women's Indian Open here on Saturday (October 24). Vani carded back-to-back three-under 69 to sit atop the leaderboard at five-under 211.

Defending champion Shannon Tan of Singapore shares the second place a stroke behind with three-time Women's Indian Open winner Pornanang Phatlum of Thailand.

Bengalurean Pranavi Urs, who secured the individual gold medal for India at the Asian Games after a gap of 24 years, was close behind at three-under 213. Pranavi was instrumental in helping Team India, comprising Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar, clinch a silver medal in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.

The impressive showing of India's women's professionals in international events of late, is not something to do with just individual brilliance but also a vision of the Women's Golf Association of India (WGAI) to provide foreign exposure and quality competition to its players.

The WGAI forged partnerships with multiple international federations, including Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Germany, Thailand, Morocco and even China for a couple of years, offering reciprocal spots of four, three and two places to foreign players in return of same number of places in their events. In the last 10 years, WGAI has utilized more than 50 reciprocal spots with the objective of providing substantial exposure and competition readiness to top Indian pros.

WGAI Secretary General Champika Sayal was of the opinion that international exposure becomes crucial while trying to gain world ranking points as most countries are trying to qualify for the Summer Olympic Games.

"More countries are getting into the Olympics. So, you need to play in the Ladies European Tour or one of the big tours to get points. I think it's very important that our players, when they go, when we have this barter system, they also get points going to play in those countries, Spain, South Korea, Germany, Australia, New Zealand. It's something that we've been doing for many years now, and I think it's the way forward. It's very important that our players go and play in many events and get their points now for the Olympics," Champika Sayal told myKhel.

WGAI has forged partnerships with Golf Australia and WPGA Tour of Australasia, which hosts the Australian Women's Open in collaboration with the Ladies European Tour (LET), and Golf New Zealand, that organizes the New Zealand Women's Open every year. Two barter spots are given to the Indian pros in exchange of two places in the Women's Indian Open.

"We have given barter spots because our players also get invited there. So, we've given two spots to Australia and New Zealand. We've given one to Germany. We've given to Spain, Ireland and South Africa, as our players are invited there. So, besides the LET, we want to have players coming from Korea and Spain competing here in India," Champika added.

Echoing Champika Sayal's sentiments, Vani Kapoor told myKhel: "We get so much exposure, so much experience, just playing and handling different courses, different weather conditions, and of course, playing with the best out there. And every week is a new week, new game, new conditions. So, it's all a learning experience and I think we should definitely have more of these barters with every country so that our Indian players get to experience so much more and then at the end of the day, the more experience you have, the more confidence you have and the better you play."

Last year, Vani finished tied 10th at the Women's Indian Open and tied 6th at the Amundi German Masters.

Vidhatri Urs, the cousin of Pranavi, also played on barter spots in Australia which gave her understanding of the course and weather conditions there besides the competitive field.

"I have played in Australia, WGAI got us two spots to play in Australia at the ISPS Handa Open which was a great experience including the weather and course conditions. I think there is so much to learn in golf. The field was more like any European Tour event. Some great golfers were playing. Overall, it was a great experience for me," Vidhatri told myKhel.