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Top players for Hero Honda golf

Onkar Singh

Hero Honda Motors director and Professional Golfers' Association of India president Pawan Kant Munjal plans to rope in professional golfers like Jeev Milkha Singh to train the country's young and budding golfers.

In an interview with rediff.com Munjal denied that he is only promotes professional golfers and does not concentrate the rest. "As far as women are concerned we have only one professional woman golfer. Jyoti Randhawa, Jeev Milkha Singh, Arjun Atwal are some of the golfers who have made their mark in the international circuit. Our efforts are on to give youngsters a chance to improve their skills in golf,” said Munjal, whose outfit, Hero Honda, is a major sponsor of golf tournaments in India.

"The Hero Honda Masters 2000, an event on the Asian PGA Davidoff Tour will be played at the Arnold Palmer designed DLF Golf and Country Club Gurgoan from November 2 to 5. We hope that Jyoti Randhawa will once again win the trophy and make it three in a row," he said.

Amongst those taking part in the tournament are Jyoti Randhawa, Jeev Milkha Singh, Arjun Atwal (all from India), Simon Dyson (England), Yeh Wei Tze (Taiwan),Prayad Marksaeng from Thailand, Sammy Daniels and James Kingston (both South Africa).

The total prize-money is $200,000 and the winner will take a cheque of $32,300.

Despite the fact that Munjal is an industrialist with considerable clout he admits that finding sponsors for the event is not easy. "I wish I had that kind of clout where by my saying people would invest thousands of dollars in golf or whatever sports. I must admit that finding a sponsor is not so easy. But some sports-loving businessmen are now chipping in their bit," he said.

As many as 96 foreign professional golfers have entered the tournament this year and they will vie with 48 Indian professionals to make for a starting field of 144. This includes top three professional golfers, namely Jyoti Randhawa, Taiwan's Yeh Wei-tze and England's Simon Dyson.

Last year Randhawa made a birdie on the final hole to beat South Africa’s Sammy Daniels by one stroke.

Talking about the task ahead of him, Munjal said he would like to popularize the game in India so much so that there would be no dearth of people wanting to sponsor the game. He would also like to take the Hero Honda tournament round the country to ensure that all those who love the game have a chance to look at the best of the golfers from the world.

He said that he planned to raise the prize-money of the tournament but could not do so because of the sudden fall of the rupee in comparison to dollar.

Munjal's interest in sports is not restricted to golf. "Every year we sponsor the Jawaharlal Nehru hockey tournament. In the year 1999 we organised a mammoth Good Luck India campaign on the even of the World Cup cricket by by bringing together Kapil Dev’s winning squad of 1983 to wish the current team all the luck. We have also sponsored events like tennis, football and women’s World Cup cricket," he said proudly.