186 golfers competed at this edition!
Bangkok, Thailand
27 – 31 October 2014
The 5th edition of the Ballantine’s Team- Am Golf Challenge was in one of the most visited destination for Indians – Bangkok in Thailand. But it was for a reason, other than its popularity. The idea was to showcase the quality of golfing in and around Bangkok, which to say the least is highly underrated and often skips the radar, given other popular golfing destinations in Thailand such as Hua Hin and Phuket.
Given the size of the competing field – a whopping 186 golfers, the entire lot was split into 3 groups playing 3 rounds of golf in all, each in rotation at one of the 3 top tracks in the Bangkok area – Lotus Valley, Riverdale and the exclusive if not elusive Alpine Golf Club, the venue of the 2000 and 2004 Johnnie Walker Classics won by Tiger Woods and Miguel Jimenez respectively. Weather was kind, despite the threatening forecasts and while one of the groups at Lotus Valley did encounter a disruption on the first day, all but 12 participants were able to complete their round.
The players were soon at their competitive best, sharpening their focus from the word go. The spectacular beauty and the intriguing challenge of the layouts served as the perfect backdrop to get their shots right. For the Team-event, two carefully selected Power Play holes with a relatively high degree of risk-reward, served as stimulants, enticing golfers to get the best points for their respective teams. There was no dearth of fine performances, as many overcame the challenges on the course and in their field, with the top spots for various leader boards fiercely competed for.
Maninder Pal Singh of Mavericks from Chandigarh took the top spot for Group A in Net Individual Stableford Points, followed byKuntal Kar of Birdie Machines from Mumbai. Sanjay Kataria of Fab Four from Delhi topped Group B, followed by Ritu Lal Kumarof Telangana Tigers, Hyderabad. In Group C, it was Aditya Deshmukh of Pune Titans, Pune in the top place followed byRavikanth Konteti of Ameya Charmers, Mumbai. In the best golf course wise performances – Sanjay Kataria of Fab Four, Delhi was the Best Individual Net Stableford Performer at Alpine, followed by Nagesh Vandakari of Ameya Charmers, Mumbai; atLotus Valley, Divesh Wadhawan of Pune of the Ballantine’s Team took the top spot, followed by Gautam Gupta of Hot Shots Delhi; at Riverdale, Anurag Chopra of Chandigarh beat Ritu Lal Kumar of Hyderabad by just one point.
To top a field of 186 golfers and that too over 3 rounds, each played at a different golf course is no mean achievement – and therefore the top honours are reserved for such performances. The Best Net Individual Stableford Winner for the entire event was Sidharth Chaudhary of Swingers, Delhi with 113 Net Stableford Points, followed by Aditya Deshmukh of Pune Titans, Pune with 110 Net Stableford Points. For the Best Individual Gross Performance, essentially a measure of the best golfers in the event – Ranganath VT of Swing Masters, Bengaluru topped with 93 Gross Stableford Points followed by Aditya Gupta of Swingers, Delhi with 86 Stableford Points.
Quite naturally, some of the best Individual Performances translated into strong contributions to the Team Competition – the raison d’etre of the Ballantine’s Team-Am Golf Challenge. This category is decided based on the aggregate for the 3 rounds of the 3 best Net Individual Stableford scores out of a team of 4 for each round. There is only one difference. The effect of Power Play on 2 holes on each course comes into play if the player has opted for it. If a player exercises the Power Play on any or both of those 2 holes, then a net par of better fetches double the Stableford Points, but a net bogie brings – 3 and a net double bogie or worse brings – 4. This variation can cause huge swings and teams that held their nerve prevailed. One of them was the Swing Masters ( comprising B K Prabhakara, Muralidhar KR, Rajesh Kumar and Ranganath VT) of Bengaluru who finished with 324 points to top the team event, beating their closest rivals Hot Shots of Delhi by just 2 points. Swingers also from Delhi finished in the 3rd place with 315 points.
The Ballantine’s Team-Am Golf Challenge was concluded with a prize and gala dinner evening at the centrally located Sofitel, Sukhumvit, which also served as the host hotel for the event. Support from all sponsors – Ballantine’s, Standard Chartered Bank, Tourism Authority of Thailand and Dell went a long way in making this event a huge success.
For Pictures of the event, go to our Facebook page.
