Team-Am Golf Challenge 1

Team-Am Golf Challenge 1

Hua Hin, Thailand
27th Sept – 1st October 2011

The Golftripz Team Am Golf Challenge 2011 held from 27th Sept – 1st October in Hua Hin, Thailand, was a spectacular event with 92 golfers from across India competing, making this one of the largest group of golfers from India to have been part of an international amateur tournament. Teams came in from Mysore, Bengaluru, Hyderabad (including an expatriate team), Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Delhi, Chandigarh and even New Zealand. Event sponsors were Tourism Authority of Thailand, Ballantines, SOMA and Hua Hin Marriott Resort & Spa.

The tournament package included stay at the beautiful 5 star Hua Hin Marriott Resort & Spa “ a low-rise property with a distinct traditional Thai ambience and a great location. The resort is delightfully set by the blue waters of the Gulf of Thailand with a private beach and is only a short distance from Hua Hin’s city centre.

The team event (teams of 4) was played in the Standard/Modified Stableford Strokeplay over three rounds in some of Thailand’s most challenging courses – Banyan Golf Club, Black Mountain Golf Club and Springfield Royal Country Club.

BANYAN GOLF CLUB – One of the Top 20 Courses in Thailand & Best 10th Hole in Thailand – 2011
BLACK MOUNTAIN GOLF CLUB – Venue of the ‘Royal Trophy’ 2011, Best Championship Course in Thailand, 3rd Best Championship Course in Asia Pacific
SPRINGFIELD ROYAL COUNTRY CLUB – A Jack Nicklaus Championship Course

The event was marked by tight competition throughout the three days, a result of the interesting format which took the sum of the best 3 Net Stableford points out of a team of 4 golfers on each day to determine the team’s score for the day. The top score which was the total for the 3 days determined the winning team. However, there was an interesting twist on the last day, which provided some dramatic finishes “Golftripz Powerplay” was introduced on the 6 toughest holes of the Black Mountain Golf Course.

The tournament started with the first round at Banyan Golf Club in near perfect cool and cloudy weather conditions. Straightaway, the undulating and tough lies on the fairways and the slick and tricky greens left no room for errors from even the best golfers on this course. Team SOMA had an excellent outing bolstered by a superb 39 points from Mr. Rajendra Prasad to chalk up a commendable 106 stableford points (best 3 scores in the team) to take the lead followed closely by Sakkath Hot Magas, Bengaluru and Coffee Club, Bengaluru. Highlight of the day was of course the brilliant Ace by G V Ramana of team FORE PLAY, Hyderabad, who decided to avoid putting all together on the challenging 171 yard par 3 17th hole and had one of the few HOLES IN ONE ever made on that hole at Banyan. A commendable effort which might just cost him a beer too many!

Each day of competitive golf ended with a superb 19th hole and participants were treated to an exclusive Ballantine’s night with great sea food and a spectacular setting by the beach on the first evening at the acclaimed restaurant Supatra by the Sea with live music playing.

The second round was held at the mature and beautiful Springfield Royal Country Club, a Jack Nicklaus design with typical features like large sandy wastes to catch the ever present sliced shots and large water bodies which run along fairways and follow you up to the greens. Though the course is relatively easier than Banyan, many a good golfer went too aggressive and paid the price of lower scores in this cleverly designed course. The day’s round took Pune Pirates to the top place in a field that had the top 4 teams ending up within 3 points of each other. Such was the level of competition!

The second evening, Ballantine’s had a swish set up at Hua Hin Marriott with delectable snacks and a wonderful setting by the beach. Golfers didn’t seem to have had enough of the game as they participated in chipping and putting contests hosted by the hotel.  The evening also saw most of the teams huddled together with plans to tackle the final which would feature the Golftripz Powerplays on 6 holes allowing golfers to take a gamble and earn double stableford points ( which could mean 8 points with a net Eagle) or end up with upto -4 points with a net double bogey

As expected, the round at the world class championship course Black Mountain was like a rollercoaster with plenty of ups and downs in the scores and a range of scores which actually went from overall minus to the highest net individual score of 59 points!

The grand finale was the awards ceremony and gala dinner at Black Mountain Golf Club. Khun Suraphon Svetasreni, Governor of Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) was the chief guest for the function, which was hosted by TAT, and was accompanied by Khun Sethaphan Buddhani, Director, TAT Mumbai and Khun Kittipong Prapattong, Asst Director, TAT, New Delhi.

Avinash Deoskar played a solid final round of 3 over par, scoring 59 Stableford Points on the last day to take his team Coffee Club from Bengaluru to the winning place. Pramod Kurian another long established golfer and again from Coffee Club, Bengaluru also played fantastic golf over the 3 days to ensure that his team remained at the top. The biggest surprise of the tournament was Golfing Eagles from Chandigarh, who were in the 10th place before the start of the 3rd day, but solid rounds by Panchkula Golf Club’s Ranjeev Dahuja and Sandeep Jasuja combined with great use of Powerplay gave them 55 points each and catapulted their team to the 2nd place. Similarly Delhi Danes, powered by 50 & 46 points from Sanjay Setia & Anshul Bagai respectively jumped to the 2nd runners up place up from 9th the day before.

Avinash and Pramod, both from the same team were tied at the top spot for Best Gross Individual Score at 80 Individual Gross Stableford Points, but Deoskar’s better round on the last day edged out Pramod. Close on their heels was another champion golfer from Bengaluru – Sumit Rathor from the team SOMA who finished 3rd, just one point behind.

In the Net Individual Winner Category it was William Sullivan III the American expatriate from the team Back 9 Bandits from Hyderabad who took the winners prize with 114 points, followed by 1st Runner up S T Buddhi Sagar of Mysore Golf Club from the team Mysore Kings with 113 points. As in the Gross, Sumit Rathor finished 3rd in the Net Individual Category.

Each of the members of the Winning Team “Coffee Club”, the Gross Individual Winner “ Avinash Deoskar and the Net Individual Winner “ William Sullivan III received a golf holiday package for 4 nights/3 rounds of golf sponsored by Ballantines.

It was heartening to see a good number of Senior Golfers in competition. Experience and three steady and solid rounds of Golf saw Sunil Thakur of team Pune Crocs walk away with the Senior Gross Stableford trophy with a commendable 52 Gross Stableford points over the three rounds. Chan Desaigoudar who had travelled all the way from the USA for the tournament was tied with Sunil Thakur also with 52 points, but lost out on the back nine in the last round.

The full results are below.

For the abridged version of the event pictures, please click here. You can download these pictures as well.

https://get.google.com/albumarchive/116210232165081286459/album/AF1QipOd5xMVBP6MggHruJ4cBISAq_ZfvSwEcc6v-K8T

 

What some of the participants had to say!

“Let me offer my sincere and personal thanks to all of you. The entire team was ” on the ball” a s they say, really great effort, the logistics, organization, coping up with never ending demands of participants, but it was awesome arrangement’s well managed and coordinated .. everything happened right on dot. 3 cheers for the golftripz team. thanks again for everything

Sunil Thakur, Pune 

Now that we are back from a hectic golfing trip, it is time to place on record our appreciation on a job well done. The Team-am golf challenge 2011 was well organised and we enjoyed the  golfing and the get togethers. The arrangements were impeccable and everything went like clockwork. Personally, I felt very happy with the whole trip.

Keep up the good work guys. You will always have our support in all your endeavours.

BVK Raju, Hyderabad

 

Team Results

Winning Team: Coffee Club, Bengaluru
PRAMOD KORAH KURIAN
T.S. DEVAIAH
M. NAGESH KARTHIK
AVINASH DEOSKAR

 

Runner up Team: Golfing Eagles, Chandigarh
TAJINDER SINGH RIHAL
SANDEEP K  JASUJA
KAPIL SAIN GOEL
RANJEEV KUMAR DAHUJA

 

Second Runner up Team: Delhi Danes, Delhi
ANSHUL BAGAI
SANJAY SETIA
RABIN BASHIR
DINKAR MARLA

Individual Results

Categories Winner Runner up 2nd Runner up
Individual Gross Stableford Avinash Deoskar Pramod Kurian Sumit Rathor
Individual Gross Stableford (Seniors) Sunil Thakur Chan Desaigoudar
Individual Net Stableford William Sullivan III S T Buddhi Sagar Sumit Rathor

 

Other Results

Prizes Banyan GC Springfield GC Black Mountain GC
Closest to Pin Capt. Manmeet Singh Jagmohan Gill Sundar Sundaresan
Longest Drive Kapil Sain Goel B. Chandrasekhar Rajiv Pusalkar
Hole in One at Banyan Golf Club  
G.V.Ramana