New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) Cricket legend Kapil Dev’s push to attract major sponsors and raise prize money in Indian golf is helping create better pathways for the country’s players to qualify for the Olympics and compete globally, DP World PGTI CEO Amandeep Johl said.
Since becoming president of the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) in June 2024, Dev spearheaded a major financial and operational transformation of golf in India. Under his leadership, PGTI secured a multi-year partnership early this year with global logistics leader DP World, which became the official Title Partner and Official Umbrella Partner of the tour.
“The DP World PGTI, under Kapil Dev, is changing how professional golf is played in India by, first of all, enhancing the prize money and increasing the number of tournaments played across the country. In the last one year, we’ve shown almost 60 per cent growth in the number of tournaments as well as in prize money,” Johl told PTI in an interview.
“The golf community is grateful to Kapil Dev for lending his name and putting his weight behind its growth. He loves the game and is working tirelessly to ensure golf grows in India. With international partnerships like DP World, we have household names such as Amul, Access Bank, Kampa and Amrutanjan joining the sport to support the DP World PGTI,” he added.
Johl said increasing prize money was directly linked to helping Indian golfers earn more world ranking points and qualify for elite global events.
“You see the DP World India Championship is coming in October again to the Delhi Golf Club. If more and more tournaments like that happen, Indian golf will become global. Those global players are used to a certain level of prize money. As the prize money goes up, the world ranking points go up. So it is very directly proportional,” he explained.
“So our idea is to grow the DP World PGTI in such a way that if I have higher prize money events, bigger global players will come because it means more world ranking points. Then our players have a better chance to compete for the Olympics and the Asian Games.” Under the modern Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) field-rating system, ranking points are heavily determined by the strength and depth of the competing field. Higher prize purses attract higher-ranked international players. For example, multiple Major winner Rory McIlroy played in the inaugural USD 4 million DP World India Championship last year.
On the initiatives undertaken under Kapil’s leadership, Johl, a former international golfer, said the PGTI was taking the game to smaller cities and schools to widen the talent pool.
“We have gone to states like Chhattisgarh, we are going to Benares, the Prime Minister’s constituency, where we are having a golf tournament two weeks from now as part of the DP World PGTI Next Gen Series.
“We’ve signed up with the International School of Sports organisation. Our job is to make sure we take the game of golf to schools. If we can teach 1,000 kids every year, our bench strength will improve and Olympians will emerge from that group. In 10 years, I will have 10,000 more golfers,” he said.
The strategic framework giving the PGTI Order of Merit champion a DP World Tour card was signed in December 2022, establishing the breakthrough paths for Manu Gandas (2022), Om Prakash Chouhan (2023), Veer Ahlawat (2024) and Yuvraj Sandhu (2025).
The pipeline to transition from the DP World Tour to the PGA Tour requires a golfer to finish in the Top 10 of the season-long Race to Dubai rankings.
Johl also said the PGTI was looking to strengthen ties with international tours to provide Indian players greater exposure.
“The best players from our tour go and compete on the DP World Tour and the best players from the DP World Tour go and compete on the PGA Tour and Japan Tour and Korean Tour and South African Tour,” he said.
“We are sending an open invitation to the Sunshine Tour, the Thailand Tour, the Korean Tour and Japan Tour that whenever their players want to come and compete in India, they are more than welcome. I think that is how we are going to grow,” he said. PTI SR ATK
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