PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, Dec 23: It was a double delight for Gurugram’s Veer Ahlawat on Sunday.
The 28-year-old Veer, who had already sealed the No. 1 spot in the Tata Steel PGTI Ranking before the final event of the 2024 PGTI season, also stole the show with the day’s best score of seven-under 64 and a playoff victory against Amardeep Malik to clinch the season-ending Tata Steel Tour Championship 2024, an INR 3 crore event, played at the Beldih and Golmuri Golf Courses in Jamshedpur.
Veer Ahlawat (67-68-68-64) prevailed over Amardeep Malik (67-64-71-65) on the second playoff hole after the two players were tied in first position at 17-under 267 at the end of the regulation 72 holes.
Sri Lankan N Thangaraja (67) claimed third place at 16-under 268 while Chandigarh’s Yuvraj Sandhu (67) and two-time Tour Championship winner Udayan Mane (70) of Pune finished tied fourth at 14-under 270.
Indian star and two-time Tour Championship winner Gaganjeet Bhullar (69) took ninth place at 10-under 274.
Record-breaking season earnings
Veer Ahlawat picked up the winning cheque worth Rs 45 lakh to take his season’s earnings to a whopping Rs 1,56,35,724, thus smashing the previous record for season’s earnings on the PGTI set at Rs 1,18,26,059, by Om Prakash Chouhan in 2023.
The six-foot four-inch tall Ahlawat, who hails from the DLF Golf & Country Club, Gurugram, won two titles and posted seven other top-10s this season.
Notably, Veer had a runner-up finish at the Indian Open, an event co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour.
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He thus became the second player after Om Prakash Chouhan to breach the Rs 1 crore mark in season’s earnings on the PGTI. As a result of his Order of Merit triumph, Veer has now earned himself a card on the DP World Tour for the 2025 season.
Bengaluru-based Rahil Gangjee finished a distant second on the PGTI Ranking with season’s earnings of Rs 69,21,582. Rahil secured an eighth place at Jamshedpur this week as he totalled 11-under 273.
All four rounds of the event saw one-half of the field play their first nine holes at Golmuri Golf Course and the second nine at Beldih Golf Course while the other half of the field played Beldih first followed by Golmuri. The par for the round was 71. The leading groups started at Golmuri and finished at Beldih.
Close competition and playoff drama
Veer Ahlawat, who was overnight tied sixth and four shots off the lead, came out firing on all cylinders on the front nine, picking up an eagle and two birdies before the turn, as he landed it within four feet on two occasions and also sank a 20-footer.
After a bogey on the 11th, Veer got his game back on track with four birdies, not leaving himself anything longer than 10 feet on the greens.
Amardeep Malik, who had a bogey-free round, was the leader for a major part of the day thanks to his five birdies on the front nine. Amardeep, a two-time winner on the PGTI, slowed down on the back-nine where he managed just one birdie. However, he kept the errors out.
When the playoff began on the 18th hole, Amardeep enjoyed the better playoff record having won one out of two encounters while Veer had lost both his previous playoffs. On the first playoff hole, Amardeep had a heart-breaking lip-out from 20 feet that could’ve sealed a birdie and perhaps the match for him.
On the second extra hole, Amardeep hit it over the green and missed the chip-putt for par while Veer continued to play steady and made the decisive par to lift his fourth professional trophy. Amardeep’s runner-up finish earned him INR 30 lakh and thus propelled him from 23rd to sixth place in the PGTI Order of Merit.
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Ahlawat said, “At the start of the round, I knew I had to go really low. So, I was looking to score on all the Par-5s and the short Par-4s. I had also been hitting my wedges well from the fairways all week. That added to my confidence. I had worked a lot on my wedge play and that paid off today.”
Jamshedpur-based professionals Karan Taunk (four-over 288) and Kurush Heerjee (10-over 294) finished tied 47th and tied 54th respectively.
