Kolkata, Feb 6 (IANS): The PGTI Players Championship 2023 will be played here at the Tollygunge Club from February 7 - 10, 2023. The tournament offering a prize purse of Rs. 1 crore will mark the start of the 2023 season of the Professional Golf Tour of India. The Pro-Am event will be played on February 11.

The tournament will see the participation of 126 players including 123 professionals and three amateurs. It is a 72-hole stroke play event with the cut being applied after 36 holes.

The strong field at the event features some of the leading names in Indian professional golf such as Udayan Mane, Khalin Joshi, defending champion Yuvraj Singh Sandhu, Varun Parikh, Om Prakash Chouhan, Kshitij Naveed Kaul and Aadil Bedi, to name a few.

Aryan Roopa Anand, the winner of the PGTI Qualifying School last week, will also be seen in action as he turns professional this week.

The foreign names competing are Sri Lankans Mithun Perera, Anura Rohana, N Thangaraja and K Prabagaran, Bangladeshis Jamal Hossain, Badal Hossain and Md Akbar Hossain, Nepal's Sukra Bahadur Rai, American Varun Chopra, Andorra's Kevin Esteve Rigaill, Japan's Makoto Iwasaki and Canada's Minwoo Park.

The prominent Kolkata-based professionals in the field are Shankar Das, Feroz Ali Mollah, Sunit Chowrasia, Divyanshu Bajaj and Mohammad Sanju. The three Kolkata-based amateurs participating are Gurmehr Bindra, Rudraksh Banerjee and Sandeep Yadav.

"We're excited to begin the 2023 season with the TATA Steel PGTI Players Championship presented by Tollygunge Club. We thank Tollygunge Club for partnering with us in staging the event. The handsome prize purse on offer coupled with the impressive field and immaculate playing conditions make for a fascinating week of golf. We wish the players all the best, welcome the rookies on the tour and look forward to a highly competitive season," said Uttam Singh Mundy, CEO of PGTI.