Indian Golf Union announces National Club Challenge

Around 5000 golfers from 25 key clubs across the country will vie for honours when inaugural edition of the Toyota IGU NHS National Club Challenge tees off with the first stage at Noida Golf Club this Sunday, Indian Golf Union said today.
The tournament, which will kick off in October and conclude in April with the National Finals, will be conducted in three stages.
In Stage one, each of the 25 competing clubs will conduct an 18 hole qualifying tournament with the club members competing in five different handicap categories so that all members of the club get an opportunity to compete for a spot on the club team.

The five handicap categories are 0-6, 7-10, 11-14, 15-19 and 20-24. The individual winner in each handicap category will automatically be selected to represent the club team, while the 6th team member and captain will be nominated by the club.
The teams will then go to the 2nd stage which is the Zonal Finals in four zones - North, South, East and West. At the 18-hole Zonal finals, best five 18 hole total stableford scores of the six players of each club team will make the team score and the top two teams from each of four Zonal Finals will qualify for the 3rd stage - the National Finals.

The first stage is the first round of the club qualifier event and Noida GC had a pre-qualifying round from which 120 club members qualified to compete in club team selection round.

Sandeep Singh, Deputy Managing Director & COO, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, said: "We have had a long and fruitful association with Indian golf over the past five years. The This tournament is poised to attract thousands of keen golfers to participate in multiple cities across India and we are happy to sponsor it."
Raian Irani, Vice President IGU, said: "This tournament will incentivise club golfers to play hard and improve their game in order to have a chance to be selected to represent the club the next year.

"We are grateful to the clubs for their enthusiastic support and wish we could have accommodated more club teams but given the logistic limitations, we have restricted the first edition to 25 clubs.