‘Cricket isn’t the one factor on the planet’: Kapil Dev tees off first leg of 2025 PGTI season | Golf Information – Occasions of India
NEW DELHI: Indian cricket legend Kapil Dev, presently serving because the president of the Skilled Golf Tour of India (PGTI), believes that athletes in different sports activities work simply as arduous as cricketers, if not more durable. Nevertheless, he feels they normally don’t obtain the popularity and highlight they honestly deserve.
“Cricket isn’t the one factor on the planet. There are different sports activities as effectively. Regardless that cricket has given me respect, face, and every part, I at all times preserve that each different sportsperson additionally works very arduous. They’ve given me this chance to sit down on this chair and if I can deliver the change in golf and different sports activities, I might be very delighted and blissful,” Kapil Dev instructed the reporters in the course of the PGTI press convention, hosted on the Delhi Golf Membership.
Saying the primary half of the 2025 PGTI schedule, the 66-year-old on Monday confirmed that 4 new occasions have been added to this 12 months’s calendar.
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The schedule consists of 11 occasions over 11 consecutive weeks, with a complete prize pool of Rs 15.66 crore (excluding the Indian Open).
The 2025 season will begin with the PGTI Gamers Championship in Kolkata on February 11.
This will likely be adopted by ten different tournaments, together with the distinguished Kapil Dev-Grant Thornton Invitational, which can conclude the primary half of the tour within the penultimate week of April.
Among the many 4 new occasions, PGTI has launched the Chhattisgarh Open Golf Championship (February 25–28), marking its first-ever PGTI event within the area. The opposite new additions are the PGTI Invitational (April 1–4), the Indorama Open Golf Championship (April 9–12), and the Calance Open (April 15–18). The prize cash for these occasions is ready at Rs 1 crore, Rs 1.5 crore, Rs 2 crore, and Rs 1 crore, respectively.
When requested concerning the notion of golf being an costly sport for the widespread folks in India, Kapil responded, “Golf isn’t dearer than cricket. Individuals imagine it’s, however that’s not true. If you happen to spend money on a set of golf equipment and a ball and play good golf, it might really be less expensive than enjoying cricket.”
One other important growth is the revival of PGTI’s second-tier tour after a five-year hiatus, now reintroduced as PGTI NexGen occasions.
Three PGTI NexGen tournaments, every that includes a prize purse of Rs 20 lakh, are scheduled for the primary quarter of 2025 at venues in Phillaur, Kapurthala, and Golden Greens in Gurugram.
Three worldwide occasions are set to happen as a part of the schedule. These embrace joint-sanctioned tournaments: the Indian Open (March 27–30), providing a prize purse of USD 2.25 million, and the Kolkata Problem (March 13–16) and Delhi Problem (March 20–23), every that includes a prize pool of USD 300,000.
The full prize purse for the primary half of the 2025 season has elevated by Rs 4.5 crore in comparison with the identical interval in 2024.
Moreover, the variety of occasions has grown from 9 to 11, reflecting Kapil’s imaginative and prescient of offering larger alternatives to aspiring golfers.
