To wrap up the year, the Tata Steel Group and the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) hosted the Tata Steel Tour Championship at the Beldih and Golmuri golf courses in Jamshedpur from December 21-24, 2023.
The tournament offered a prize purse of a whopping ₹3Cr, the biggest on the PGTI, and the courses featured 75 elite professionals.
This season-ending event was a 72-hole stroke-play championship with no cuts applied. In all four rounds, half the field played their first nine holes in Golmuri and the second nine at Beldih, while the other half played their first nine at Beldih and their second nine at Golmuri. From the second round onwards, the leading groups as per the scores played the first nine holes at Golmuri and the second nine at Beldih.
The tournament featured a star-studded field with some of Indian golf’s biggest names partaking in the contest including, Gaganjeet Bhullar, SSP Chawrasia, defending champion Chikkarangappa S, Manu Gandas, Om Prakash Chouhan, Karandeep Kochhar and Veer Ahlawat to name a few.
Ace golfer Ganagjeet Bhullar saw it home with an error-free final round of six-under 66 to triumph by a solitary shot. This was his second TATA Steel Tour Championship win, following his previous victory in 2020. His twelfth PGTI win was a result of an impressive eagle and four birdies. He accumulated 3 birdies on the front nine that put pressure on the other players and propelled him to this victory.
Rahil Gangjee finished as the runner-up at 24-under 264 after firing a 67 in the last round. His achievement moved him up 26 spots in the PGTI Order of Merit, in sixth place.
Chandigarh’s Angad Cheema had a creditable third-place finish at 23-under 265 in Jampshedpur, gaining him four spots on the money list to end the year in fifth place.
Om Prakash Chouhan took the coveted #1 spot in the TATA Steel PGTI Order of Merit after finishing tied tenth at 15-under 273 at the Tour Championship. He won four titles and posted eight other top tens last season, becoming the first player to breach the ₹1Cr mark in a single season’s earnings. As a result of this triumph, he earned himself a card in the DP World Tour 2024 season.
24-year-old rookie Varun Chopra of the United States won the award for the PGTI Emerging Player of the Year.
Final Leaderboard
263: Gaganjeet Bhullar (64-66-67-66)
264: Rahil Gangjee (70-62-65-67)
265: Angad Cheema (66-66-65-68)
268: Yuvraj Singh Sandhu (73-66-66-63)
269: Rashid Khan (69-65-68-67)