Fresh from a successful year on the tour, Anirban Lahiri is all set to represent the Puravankara Bangalore team for a second time. The inaugural edition saw Anirban Lahiri turn in brilliant performance in the strokeplay format to guide the team to the semi-finals where he beat on-fire Anura Rohana from Take Chennai to guide his team into the finals.
2012 saw Anirban Lahiri also make his debut at the prestigious British Open, where he hit a historic hole in one at the ninth hole on day three of the Open at the Royal Lytham and St Annes, England and finished 31st in his debut grand slam event. Team-mate Manav Jaini who is also continuing to play for Team Purankara Bangalore had earlier finished third at 2012 BILT Open, fourth at 2012 Mcleod Russel Tour Championship earning him the tenth spot on the PGTI Order of Merit.
In their second outing for the Puravankara Bangalore team, as Anirban and Manav look to deliver on the fans' expectations, they will be joined by Om Prakash Chouhan who finished 2012 ranked no.7 on the PGTI Order of Merit. With an in-form Anirban Lahiri, Manav Jaini and Om Prakash Chouhan in their ranks, Puravankara Bangalore will be looking to improve upon their performance at the inaugural edition of the Louis Philippe Cup, where they finished runners-up.
Following the strokeplay on the first two days of the tournament in February, the four teams with the best total pro team scores over 36 holes will advance to the knockout semi-finals which will be played in the match play format with one-on-one matches between the three players of each team. The finals will see the top two teams battle for the trophy and winner's purse of Rs. 36 lakhs, while the runner-up finishes with Rs.24 lakhs. The losing semi-finalists will battle for 3rd place and a prize purse of Rs.18 lakhs.
The event will see nine city-teams - AVT Kolkata, Take Solutions Chennai, Puravankara Bangalore, DLF Gurgaon, Dev Ellora Chandigarh, Shubhkamna Noida, Navratna Ahmedabad and Jaypee Greens Greater Noida and Delhi team battle it out for a total prize money of 1.2 crores. Conceptualised by Rishi Narain Golf Management, the Louis Philippe Cup has received sanction from the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) for three years as the exclusive professional team golf tournament in India.
Star Indian players who have confirmed their participation at the Louis Philippe Cup include 2012 Scottish Open Champion Jeev Milkha Singh (Shubhkamna Noida), former Asian Tour No. 1 Jyoti Randhawa (DLF Gurgaon) and winner of the 2011 Singapore Classic Himmat Rai (Delhi). While Gaganjeet Bhullar fresh from his exploits at the Asian Tour where he won the 2012 Macau Open & Yeangder Tournament Player Championship will represent the home team Jaypee Greens, Greater Noida team.
With all of India's top stars set to take the field at golf's premier event Noida is set to witness intense competition for the top spot.
Louis Philippe Cup 2013 Pro Teams
Navratna Ahmedabad
1 Mithun Perera
2 Vinod Kumar
3 Vikrant Chopra
Puravankara Bangalore
1 Om Prakash Chouhan
2 Manav Jaini
3 Anirban Lahiri
Dev Ellora Chandigarh
1 Ajeetesh Sandhu
2 Harendra P Gupta
3 Sujjan Singh
Take Solutions Chennai
1 Mukesh Kumar
2 Anura Rohana
3 Ssp Chowrasia
Team Delhi
1 Rashid Khan
2 Shamim Khan
3 Himmat Singh Rai
DLF Gurgaon
1 Abhinav Lohan
2 Digvijay Singh
3 Jyoti Randhawa
Jaypee Greens Greater Noida
1 Sanjay Kumar
2 Vijay Kumar
3 Gaganjeet Bhullar
Avt Kolkata
1 Shankar Das
2 Chiragh Kumar
3 Rahil Gangjee
Shubhkamna Noida
1 Abhijit Singh Chadha
2 Ashok Kumar
3 Jeev Milkha Singh
