New Delhi, March 15 (IANS) The 2025 edition of the India Open, the country’s most prestigious golf event, will witness participation from as many as 16 winners from the last and current season of the European Tour. Defending champion Keita Nakajima of Japan leads an extremely strong field as this year’s edition of India’s national open, co-sanctioned by the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) and DP World Tour schedule (DPWT), is set to get underway from March 27.
The dozen winners from the 2024 DPWT Schedule will be joined by the four champions from the 2025 edition. The field includes Germany’s Marcel Siem, the tournament winner from 2023, who won another title in 2024.
In addition, there will be a strong challenge from Indian players who will have an eye on the host of benefits that come alongside the massive USD 2.25 million prize purse.
The 24-year-old Nakajima, a former Asia-Pacific Amateur Champion, was the World No. 1 amateur for a record total of 87 weeks between November 2020 and September 2022. In 2023, Nakajima won three titles on the Japan Tour and went on to top the Japan Tour Order of Merit, by virtue of which he earned a card to the DPWT 2024 season.
In his very first full season on DPWT Nakajima won the Indian Open beating the trio of India’s Veer Ahlawat, Sweden’s Sebastian Soderberg, and American Johannes Veerman. The three runner-ups are all coming back to have a shot at one of the iconic events of the region.
Nakajima is also hoping to emulate a fellow Japanese player, Kenji Hosoishi, who became the first player ever to win the HIO title back-to-back in 1967 and 1968. Since then, Jyoti Randhawa (2006 and 2007) and SSP Chawrasia (2016 and 2017) have achieved the feat.
Nakajima is not the only former World No. 1 amateur in the field who has had success in India. The field also includes American Ollie Schniederjans, who was World Amateur No. 1 for a straight 41 weeks in 2014-2015.
Schniederjans recently ended a nine-year title drought by winning the International Series India, held at the same venue.
The Indian Open 2025 will also feature another 24-year-old star, the prodigious Spaniard Eugenio Chacarra, who was the World No. 2 amateur in 2022 and has won two international titles.
–IANS
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