Dhoni’s presence was a huge crowd puller for the tournament
MS Dhoni made his first appearance at a major Indian golf event when he played 18 holes in the pro am of the Kapil Dev – Grant Thornton Invitational at the challenging DLF Golf & CC in Gurgaon.
Dhoni later helped put on the winners’ jacket at the presentation ceremony and spoke to the crowd about how much he has started enjoying the game.
Captain cool in the house!!!@KDGT_golf#pgtikdgt22 #pgtigram #indiangolf #golfshot #golfclub #golfpro #golfinIndia #KapilDev #KDGTgolf #GOBeyondForGolf #dlfgolfandcountryclub #gtbharat @TataSteelLtd @AmexIndia @AmrutanjanH pic.twitter.com/aEmGOav6rs
— PGTI (@pgtofindia) September 30, 2022
Varun Parikh receiving his Winner’s jacket from MS Dhoni
Meanwhile, 24-year-old Varun Parikh from Ahmedabad, won his first professional title during his first year on tour, having won the tour qualifying tournament played in February 2022. Parikh played extremely solid on the weekend after opening with a quadruple bogey on his first hole on Day One, shooting 73-70-67-67 (11-under 277) to finally cruise to a 5 stroke victory.
The last Hero Indian Open played here in 2019 as part of the European Tour also saw the eventual winner make a quadruple bogey and that was in the final round !!
Parikh entered the final round holding a joint lead with Kartik Sharma, a DLF regular but he ran away with 6 birdies on nos. 4,6,11,13,16 and 18. Kartik on the other hand had only two birdies in his final round and dropped to third, two strokes behind 3 time winner Manu Gandas, who has won 3 times already this season and also counts DLF as his home course. Interestingly, Kartik held a six shot lead midway through the 3rd round but dropped five shots on the back 9 to end Rd 3 tied with Varun Parikh.
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Varun was awarded his trophy by Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni who later spent 30 mins with the young champion and talked about developing the right mental approach in sports and more.
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At a glittering evening function, Mr Pawan Munjal , Chairman Hero Motocorp and sponsor of both Men’s & Women’s Indian Opens for the past decade, again felicitated the winner.
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Look out for India Golf Weekly’s special issue on the KDGT Invitational.