New Delhi, March 20
The Indian Golf Union (IGU), the sport's national governing body, has received funding of Rs 2 crore which it will utilise in improving grassroots programme, strengthening the National Golf Academy of India (NGAI), growth of the sport in Northeast India, amongst others.
IGU signed the deal with Bharat Golf Private Limited, helmed by professional golfer Manav Jaini, in their quest to produce champions of the future and attract more youngsters to the sport.
The IGU had lost sponsors like Rolex and YES Bank in the last 3-4 years due to numerous litigations in High Courts with the private clubs up in arms against Army control and derecognition by the Sports Ministry for not following the National Sports Code, 2011 in conducting free and fair elections.
However, the Brijinder Singh-led governing council revived the corpus the national sports federation was lacking by partnering with the Royal & Ancient (R&A), world golf's rules body, and the Sports Ministry.
Indian Open, the flagship golf event organised by IGU, also saw a huge jump in prize money, courtesy title sponsors Hero MotoCorp. The DP World Tour event will be played for a whopping purse of $2.25 million from March 28 to 31 at the DLF Golf & Country Club in Gurugram.
"The biggest challenge was funds. To be able to undertake any initiative we needed funds. I am happy to share that in the last one year, we have been able to tap various sponsors and also government bodies to help us build up a sizeable Corpus. We can now plan various activities to grow the game of golf in India. We are working very closely with the R&A and are tapping into their resources to put a growth plan in place," IGU president Brijinder Singh said in a statement.
In the last one year, the IGU re-introduced the National Squad system, began collaborating with European coaches' body to strengthen the NGAI, and sent the Indian amateur teams to 20 overseas tournaments for desired exposure.