TATA Steel PGTI tees off 2022 season on Tuesday with Gujarat Open Championship

The tournament carrying a prize purse of Rs 40 lakh will be played at the Kalhaar Blues & Greens Golf Club.

The tournament comprises a field of 126 players -- 123 professionals and three amateurs. The event will feature some of the top Indian professionals such as Olympian and 2021 PGTI Order of Merit champion Udayan Mane, Karandeep Kochhar, Yuvraj Singh Sandhu, among others.

The foreign challenge will be led by Sri Lanka's Mithun Perera, Australia's Kunal Bhasin, Nepal's Sukra Bahadur Rai and the Bangladeshi quintet of Md Akbar Hossain, Md Muaj, Md Somrat Sikdar, Md Sayum and Md Shakhawat Hossain Sohel.

The local challenge will be spearheaded by professionals Varun Parikh, Anshul Patel, Jay Pandya, Shravan Desai and Arshpreet Thind. The Gujarat-based amateurs in the field are Rajiv Vasa, Dhruv Suri and Rachit Mankoti.

One of the tournament favourites, Mane said, ''I'm excited about playing the Gujarat Open 2022 as it's always a treat to play in Kalhaar, one of the top championship venues in India. I've also won at this venue in the past and that adds to my confidence this week. ''It's a course where the approach shots demand a lot of precision. I would like to carry forward the momentum from last year's Order of Merit win.''