Balan best in Tayolormade invitational skins golf tourney

Mumbai, Nov 7 (UNI) Rateesh Balan was the most successful golfer from among 80 participants in the first TaylorMade Invitational Skins Challenge Golf tournament, played at the Bombay Presidency Golf Club, here today.

Balan won a record 16 skins, which translates to 16 holes out of 18, while Dharmesh Karani won 15. The ''skins'' format sees each group of four players compete within themselves for 18 prizes over the round of 18 holes.

The occasion also saw the felicitation of the Taylormade junior golf champion of the city, the 13-year-old Adeesh Goyal of Cathedral School, who scored an excellent round of 12 over 82. The runner up was the eight-year-old Rohan Sharma.

Dennis Allen, Vice President Asia Pacific, TaylorMade Adidas Golf, present on the occasion said ''We see India's potential and opportunity for every cricket playing youngster to start swinging a golf club and using that natural hand eye coordination to master this game hence our commitment to grassroots golf and making sure that the conversion takes place to golf''.

Among the prominent participants in the tournament were Puneet Matta of Citibank, Ravi Mehrotra of AIG Insurance, Mohit Batra of ICICI Bank. Also seen in action were TV personality Mandira Bedi, former cricketer Nikhil Chopra, commentator Charu Sharma and Indian cricket team trainer Andrew Leipus.

The TaylorMade Skins Invitational next moves to Delhi on Nov 9 followed by Bangalore and Kolkota in the first tournaments sponsored by a golf equipment company in this country. TaylorMade is one of the world's leading brands of golf equipment and is used by stars such as Sergio Garcia of Spain and Augusta Masters champion Mike Weir of Canada.

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