40 corporates to play in Merchants Cup Golf

Kolkata, Aug 4 (UNI) As many as 40 corporate houses will compete in the sixth edition of The Telegraph Merchants Cup Golf competition will be staged at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club from August 8 to 11.

Mr M KSingh, President of RCGC, said, ''Kolkata boasts of many inter-company sporting disciplines, amongst which the Merchants Cup Golf prides itself as being the oldest. This event has been played since 1906 where George Hinderson won when the course was in Barrackpore then there was a break only from 1917 to 1919 and again from 1939-1946. The event has been played continuously since 1947 till date.'' The event has been broken into two categories--The Telegraph Merchants Cup and The Telegraph Challenge Cup. The Telegraph Merchants Cup is open to those corporate houses that have at least three executive golfers based in the Eastern region, while The Telegraph Challenge Cup has no such limitations.

'The Telegraph Merchants Cup' boasts of a field of 40 leading corporates including the likes of Williamson Magor Group who have won the event since 1998, TATA Tea Ltd, ITC Ltd, TISCO, Carritt Moran, J.Thomas&Co Ltd, McLeod&Co Ltd who have been participating since 1920, The Birla Group, CESC Ltd, Goodricke Group Ltd and Oil India.

The new entrants in this category are Cognizant Technology Solutions, Standard Chartered Bank&The Oberoi Grand.

Three National champions Mr Lakshman Singh winner also of the Asian Games Gold Medal, Mr Alan Singh and Ms Vandana Agarwal will be joined by young Turk Ranjit Singh who will be representing Oil India Limited.

There will be 28 teams in contention for 'The Telegraph Challenge Cup'. Some of the companies participating are Amarawati Tea, Aquarious Marketing, South India Projects, J Reynold&Co, Sen&Singh Engineers, Ape Power Ltd, Century Laminating Co Ltd and Flender Limited.

Mr Rajev Takru, Chairman Merchants Cup Golf Competition said, ''he is delighted with the response received and believes that young executives should be encouraged to play this sport.'' Brandon D'spuza of Tiger Sports, who are managing the event, said, ''the scoring format for The Telegraph Merchants Cup will be a scratch stroke-play competition with players in different handicap categories being permitted to discard their poorest holes. Each team shall consist of four players but not less than three and the best three scores will count towards the team aggregate.'' ''The Telegraph Challenge Cup has also been changed to a very fair Double Peoria format. This is applicable to a team of up to 4 players with only 3 scores counting,'' he added.

UNI BA PL DH DS1700