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Michael Hoey, Peter Lawrie and Gareth Maybin are the Irish players entered for the Avantha Masters this week in India, where they will be part of a host of European Tour champions, led by the man who has been Number One an historic eight times, Colin Montgomerie.
Of the 156-man field assembling in ‘Incredible India’, 50 have put their names on European Tour titles.
That kind of pedigree will be required for a European Tour Member to lift the beautiful Avantha Masters trophy on Sunday evening as they go head-to-head with the best players from the Asian Tour and the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI).
No fewer than 38 Asian Tour winners, including four Order of Merit champions, are poised to make the Avantha Masters an intriguing contest between the two continents.
Montgomerie, the most prolific British winner in European Tour history, will make his first appearance in the event at Jaypee Greens Golf & Spa Resort, and he will be joined in Noida, near New Delhi, by his fellow former European Ryder Cup stars Niclas Fasth of Sweden, Ignacio Garrido of Spain, England’s David Howell, Italy’s Edoardo Molinari, Frenchman Thomas Levet and Welshman Philip Price.
Spearheading the Asian Challenge will be Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee, the Indian duo of Jyoti Randhawa and Jeev Milkha Singh and China’s Liang Wen-chong, who are all Asian Tour Order of Merit champions.
Jaidee, who won his fifth European Tour title in last year’s ISPS Handa Wales Open, has enjoyed a strong start to new season, finishing third in the Volvo Golf Champions and tied ninth in both the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship and the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters.
Singh, who held off Molinari’s younger brother Francesco to win the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open last July, will lead the Indian challenge as he attempts to win a fifth European Tour title.
Asia’s Number One in 2006 and 2008 is joined in the field by compatriot Shiv Kapur, who is going for a double on home soil after winning the Gujarat Kensville Challenge on the European Challenge Tour last month.
Kapur is looking to become only the seventh different player to win on The European and Challenge Tours in the same season.
Both Kapur and Singh will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of countryman S.S.P Chowrasia, who claimed the 2011 Avantha Masters title after overhauling overnight leader Robert Coles with a round of 67 on the final day to prevail by a single stroke.
Prior to that, Chowrasia became the first Indian to win a European Tour event on home soil – and only the third, after Arjuna Atwal and Jeev Milkha Singh, to win one anywhere – when he captured the EMAAR-MGF Indian Masters title in 2008.
Chowrasia was succeeded as Avantha Masters champion last year by South African Jbe Kruger, who won his maiden European Tour title 12 months ago, finishing two shots clear of Germany’s Marcel Siem and Spaniard Jorge Campillo.
Coincidentally, both Kruger and Chowrasia stand at five feet five inches and are the smallest two players on The European Tour, but both produced big performances to win at the tournament’s previous host venue, DLF Golf and Country Club.
This year’s event, which again carries a prize-fund of €1.8 million, is the European Tour’s first visit to the Greg Norman-designed course at Jaypee Greens Golf & Spa Resort, which at 7,347 yards is India’s longest golf course.
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