City golfers Akram Mehdi handicap CAT (0-18) and Kanumuri Ranga Raju handicap CAT (19-24) claimed the first two national final spots to qualify for the MercedesTrophy National Finals on day 1 of Hyderabad Leg after carding a Nett. Score of 70.2 and 71 respectively.
A total of 17 golfers have qualified so far and they will be competing in the National Finals to be played at the Oxford Golf Resort in Pune from April 4-6.
The best Gross Winner of the day was Shashidhar Reddy with an excellent round of 76 and there were a host of other prizes on offer to be won on the day.
Prominent winners included Narsimha Raju who won the Ballantine's Long Drive Challenge with a mammoth drive of 250 yards 7ft. and 8 inches.
Chandrashekar Bongu won the Mercedes-Benz Closest to Pin contest on hole no. 16 by landing the ball at 6ft and 9 inches from the pin.
In the Mercedes Benz Closest to Pin in Two Shots, Ramesh Surana landed the ball at 6 ft. from the pin to win the contest on hole no. 3.
Siva Kumar Rachakonda who landed the ball inch from the line won the Mercedes-Benz Straightest Drive contest.
The format of play was Double Peoria. This unique format of adjusting handicaps of players levels the playing field enabling golfers to have a greater chance of qualifying for the National Finals.
A total of 100 golfers participated on Day 1 of the Hyderabad qualifiers and another 100 golfers will compete for the remaining two qualification spots on Day 2.
This year's MercedesTrophy will host 27 days of golf across 12 Indian cities. Pune will also host the national finals at the Oxford Golf Resort between 4th and 6th April 2018.
The 18th edition of the MercedesTrophy will next travel to 7 more cities Coimbatore, Kolkata, Chennai, Chandigarh, Gurgaon, Noida and Jaipur.
Forty five winners will be selected from the qualifiers for the National Finals. The qualifiers end on March 11 in Jaipur.
Three winners of the National Finals will then compete against those from tournaments played in 60 countries all over the world in the 29th edition of the MercedesTrophy World Final to be held in Stuttgart, Germany.
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