NEW DELHI, India -- As many as 140 top junior golfers from eight countries will vie for top honours at the inaugural Albatross International Junior Golf Championship, which tees off at the Jack Nicklaus-designed Classic Golf Resort on November 25, 2009. The three-day event will be conducted over 54 holes with no cut, and will be played under the aegis of Albatross Junior Tour. The main event will be preceded by a gala opening ceremony on Tuesday, November 24, which also happens to be the designated practice day.
The inaugural event will see an elite band of partners. ONGC, Adidas, TaylorMade, Audi, Pioneer Urban, MTS, Uni Style Image, Vital Gear and Spruce are the associate partners. Golf Digest and Hindustan Times are the official magazine and media partners respectively. The trophies, made from Swarovski diamonds, are sponsored by Loka Lifestyle while Spice Jet is the official Airlines for the event.
The tournament will witness creme-de la-crème of junior golfers from eight countries including India, USA, Canada, UAE, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia and Korea. Some of the country's leading juniors to vie for top honours in five different age categories include: Samrat Basu, Anirudh Uppal, Arshbeer Saini(Category 'A', 15-17 years); Ankur Chadha, Manu Gandas, Gurbaaz Takkar and Arjun Singh (Category 'B', 13 -14); Piyush Sangwan, Feroz Garewal and Altarash Barthakur (Category 'C', 11-12 years); Aadil Bedi and Arjun Puri (Category 'D', 8-10 years); Vasundhara Thiara and Harshjeet Singh Sethi (Category 'E', 6-7 years) amongst others.
American duo of Jordan Knight and Nitin Chutke; Malaysia's Mohammad Rabbani Bin Hassan; Thailand's Poom Saksansin, Korntawach Julamooi, Natthawat Suvajanakorn, Setthavut Paradee, Puwit Anupansoebsai, Kittipong Olankitkunchai Apinya Phadungsil, Benyapa Niphatsophon, Virunpat Orankitkulchai and Onkanok Soisuwan; Korea's Sun Woo Choi; Dubai's Sai Ganesh, Rayhan Thomas, Serifa, Sangeetha Nahar, Fardeen Meeran, Rishi Nair, Dhruv Nair, Jai Bhalla, Anvita Bhalla and Sri Lanka's Harsha de Silva will add foreign flavour to the inaugural tournament.
Rajiv Talwar, Parent Organizer, AJT: "Junior Golf is the breeding ground for our future champions. The domination of Indian Golfers in Asian Professional tour has showcased Indian talent and the expansion of the junior tour through AJT would lay down the perfect platform for growth of golf in India. AJT plans to facilitate participation of its junior players to other countries in exchange as well as to participate in the international tournaments hosted by other countries. The world is certainly getting smaller and competition fierce; this would only make our players harness best of their skill in golf."
Rakesh Chadha, Parent Organizer, AJT: "Our endeavor is to provide the best facilities for the junior golfers so that they can compete at the International level. We have organized mental coaching and physical conditioning camps for golfers and some of the Albatross players have gone on to excel both home and away.
"We firmly believe that the future champions of Indian golf will emerge by providing opportunities and exposure to junior golfers by continually investing their development from age 6 year onwards."
An added attraction of the tournament will be a fitness training camp by leading Titleist trainer Brian, who will teach the youngsters to deal with all the pressures that comes with playing the sport.
The resplendent Classic Golf Resort will pose a stiff challenge to the golfers who will have to dig deep into their reserves to come up triumphant in India's biggest International junior golfing championship.
Contact: tilak.malaviya@gmail.com; +91 - 98105 91320
