Marcus Fraser to join a strong Hero Indian Open field

Five players in Top-100 of world rankings
Event to carry lot of World Ranking points
Defending champion Lahiri to face Harrington’s challenge

New Delhi, 08 March 2016: The 2016 Hero Indian Open will boast of the strongest-ever field with the confirmation of three more players inside the World’s Top-100 professional players. With the addition of Australian Marcus Fraser (Ranked 63rd), Dutchman Joost Luiten (Ranked 77th) and South African George Coetzee (Ranked 78th) to the field, the total number of players in Top-100 will be as high at six in the richest-ever edition of the Hero Indian Open, which will carry the biggest-ever purse of US $ 1.66 million.

Anirban Lahiri at 50th, Tommy Fleetwood at 81st and Marc Warren at 87th are the others in the Top-100. Besides these, three-time Major winner, Padraig Harrington of Ireland, has also confirmed for the event.

A whole host of past winners and defending champion Lahiri will also be seen in action. The presence of all leading Indian and Asian stars will ensure the 2016 edition of the Hero Indian Open will be the strongest ever in history.

The strength of the field and presence of so many Top-100 players will also mean more World Ranking points, which are essential for players to qualify for the Rio Olympics, where golf makes a return after 108 years. The exact number of points will be determined once the entries close next week.

The event will once again feature on the European Tour as a co-sanctioned event with the Asian Tour.

Fraser, who has twice been second on the Asian Tour Order of Merit and is current leading it for 2016, was third at the Hero Indian Open in 2015. This year Fraser shot up in World rankings, following his win at the Malaysian Championships last month.

The 37-year-old Australian from Melbourne has three European Tour titles, including co-sanctioned events. He was also T-20 at the Open Championships last year. This season soon after the win in Malaysia, he was T-15 in Perth International.

Luiten, who played a lot of events on PGA Tour in 2015, has been in great form with a Tied-fifth in Abu Dhabi and Tied-eighth in Dubai and T-13 in Qatar. He was also T-15 in Malaysia. Last year, Luiten, 30, had Top-5 finishes in Scottish Open and Dunhill Championships. Once ranked as high as 28th, he is now 77th.

In 2015, Coetzee hit the spotlight as he finished T-7 at the PGA Championships, besides winning twice – at the Tshwane Open and AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open, both of which were European Tour events. He was also third at the Trophee Hassan in Morocco.

Warren, 87th in the world, was runner-up at Qatar in 2015 and was fourth at both Scottish Open and Saltire Matchplay.

The event will see in action all top Indian players, who between them have won numerous international titles on Asian, European, Japan and PGA Tours. They include Jeev Milkha Singh, Arjun Atwal, SSP Chawrasia, Shiv Kapur, Gaganjeet Bhullar, Rashid Khan, Rahil Gangjee, Himmat Rai and Chiragh Kumar among others.

The roster of former champions is likely to include Siddikur Rahman of Bangladesh, Thaworn Wiratchant of Thailand, Mardan Mamat of Singapore and India’s own Atwal and some more.

India’s own Lahiri will be the highest ranked player in the field at 50th. In 2015, Lahiri featured in each of the four Majors and the Presidents Cup last year. He also won the Hero Indian Open in a remarkable run of the three weeks, during which he won two times on the Tour, to hit global headlines. As he made his way through a global schedule, Lahiri finished Tied-fifth at the PGA Championships, to register the best finish ever by an Indian at a Major. He also made cuts at the Masters and the British Open.

Even as he attained new heights in the game and went on to earn a PGA Tour card for 2016, Lahiri ranked the win at the Indian Open as a ‘achieving a lifelong dream’.

Harrington, one of the sporting icons of Ireland, won his first Major in 2007 at the British Open in Carnoustie, when he beat Sergio Garcia in a four-hole play-off and became the first Irishman to win the Open in 60 years.

The next year an injured Harrington was uncertain of even teeing up at the Open in Birkdale. But not only did he play, but went on to win his second successive Open and became the first European in more than 100 years to retain the Open. Three weeks later, he added a third Major, the PGA Championships, at Oakland Hills, to become the first European to win PGA Championships in 78 years.

Harrington has 30 professional wins across the world. Fourteen of them have come on European Tour, six on PGA Tour and he has also won four times in Asia and once in Japan, making him a truly global golfers. His win in Japan came in a play-off with Tiger Woods at the Dunlop Phoenix Open in 2006.

Source: Hero Indian Open Release