Manu Gandas during his final round of Tata Steel Tour Championship at Golmuri Golf Course in Jamshedpur
The Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) has announced it will be holding its annual Qualifying Tournament at Golmuri Golf Course in Jamshedpur starting Jan. 18, 2023. The Pre-Qualifiers I,II & III will be played in Jamshedpur from Jan. 18-28 and the Final Stage will be played at Tollygunge Club from Jan. 30-Feb. 3.
The 2022 Qualifiers were played at Kalhaar Blues & Greens in Ahmedabad after another Ahmedabad club, Kensville Golf & GC had hosted the five previous editions of the tournament, starting in 2016.
This will be the 9th edition of the Qualifying School, which began in 2014 at Poona Golf Club. The event was not held in 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2022, Varun Parikh emerged victorious with a score of 16-under 272 at Kalhaar Blues & Greens and went on to win the Kapil Dev – Grant Thornton Invitational at DLF GC in September.
The tournament is played in two stages – Pre-Qualifying & Final stage. Roughly 300 golfers compete in the pre-qualifying stage, with 80 advancing to the final stage. There they are joined by the pros who finished outside the top-60 on the previous year’s Order of Merit.
The final is a 72-hole event and offers players tour cards across four categories:
Category A – Full Card
Category B – Players who played all four rounds of the Final but do not earn their full card. Players who finished 61-100 on the previous year’s Order of Merit but did not earn their full card for 2022 (To be classified in this category, players must have played in the pre-qualifying event as well)
Category C – Players who played in the final but missed the cut.
Category D – Players who missed the cut in Pre Qualifying and did not make it to the final event.
Credits:-
Photo – PGTI