Former champion Udayan Mane will hope for an encore when he tees up against a stellar field at the Bengaluru Open golf championship beginning here on Tuesday.
Mane, who claimed the title in 2017, along with the seasoned Rahil Gangjee will be among the top Indian golfers, who will vie for honours at the Rs 40 lakh event starting at the Karnataka Golf Association (KGA) course here.
A total of 121 players, including Honey Baisoya and Karandeep Kochhar, will be competing at the event.
As many as 118 professionals and three amateurs will be part of the field which boosts of a strong local presence as besides Gangjee, the likes of M Dharma, Syed Saqib Ahmed and C Muniyappa -- all Bengaluru-based professionals, will also be part of the field.
The prominent foreign names in the field include the Sri Lankan quartet of defending champion Anura Rohana, Mithun Perera, N Thangaraja and K Prabagaran, Bangladesh's Md Zamal Hossain Mollah and Australian Kunal Bhasin.
The Bangalore Open, which is the penultimate event of the TATA Steel PGTI season, will determine the players who will make it to the elite field of PGTI's top-60 at next week's season-ending TATA Steel Tour Championship in Jamshedpur.
The event will also go a long way in deciding the top spots in the TATA Steel PGTI Order of Merit.