Navratna Ahmedabad's Mithun ready to defend Louis Philippe Cup
Press Trust of India Bengaluru Navratna Ahmedabad's Mithun Perera, who led his team to victory twice over the past three years, is all set to play another vital role for his team in defending the Louis Philippe Cup title when it gets underway at the Karnataka Golf Association hee tomorrow.
The Sri Lankan golfer who has been playing for the Navratna Ahmedabad team since the inception, will be joined by his countryman Anura Rohana and winner of 2014 PGTI Order of merit Shankar Das.
Perera, runners-up at 2014 Panasonic Open India, has previously played with PGTI players Vinod Kumar and Vikrant Chopra at the Louis Philippe Cup and this is the first time he will play with different set of players.
He said, "I am kind of missing both of them as we have played this tournament as brothers and produced very good results. Winning it twice and finishing third in the second edition shows how successful our team was.
"It would have been great if they could have been here with me and we could have completed a hat-trick of titles. However, I am excited about Rohana and Das and I am sure we will put up a great show in the coming week."
The 28-year-old, who is known to hit more fairways than bushes, is confident about his individual performance as well.
"This course conditions are good and suit my game as well as that of my teammates. The only difference I can see is that the grass is rough and players with accuracy can shoot low numbers. I am glad that I have got two consistent players. I remember in 2012 at this tournament, Rohana was leading at 12-under in the stroke play event playing for a different team and I was one stroke behind, so we have a good chance," said Perera, who is playing at the KGA after three years.
Asian Tour regular Perera said, "I used to look forward to playing in the knockout format especially in the Louis Philippe Cup because we play stroke play events almost every week. Here, we will have to keep a lot of trust on each other as the top two scores out of three are counted and show our best individual game."
Talking about the team spirit, he said, "I have always shared the room with Rohana whenever we have traveled to India or other countries for Asian Tour event. With the 'Senior's' (Perera fondly calls Rohana) help, we never get into trouble and I am sure with the help of Shankar, we can make it big this week.