Aditi Ashok to lead Indian charge in Women’s Indian Open golf

Olympian Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar will lead a strong Indian field in the 14th edition of the Hero Women’s Indian Open golf tournament, which will be held after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aditi is India’s first and only Women’s Indian Open winner and has since graduated to LPGA. She came tantalisingly close to winning a medal in Tokyo Olympics, finishing fourth.

Besides Aditi and Diksha, the Indian line-up also includes Tvesa Malik, Amandeep Drall, Vani Kapoor, Ridhima Dilawari, Gaurika Bishnoi and Neha Tripathi among others.

At least five former winners have already confirmed their participation, including defending champion Christine Wolf, 2018 winner Becky Morgan, Camisole Chevalier, Aditi and Caroline Hedwall.

Four-time Ladies European Tour winner Linn Grant will also be seen in action in the $4,00,000 tournament, to be held at Gurgaon’s DLF Golf and Country Club from October 20 to 23.

Regulars in domestic circuit, Pranab Urs, Hitachi Bakshi, Jahnavi Bakshi, Seher Atwal and Sneha Singh will also get a chance to rub shoulders with the best in the business.

This year the field has been curtailed to 114 golfers keeping in mind day light problem.

“We would like to have a much bigger field but we had to shorten the field due to limited number of day light hours in the month of October,” said Women’s Golf Association of India (WGAI) secretary general Champika Sayal during the launch of the event here on Thursday.

“We don’t want to face the same problems which we faced last time. We don’t want to drag a round to the next day.”