December 27, 2013: The way Indian currency behaved this year will cast its gloomy shadow on Indian golf in the New Year. India will not host much-awaited Avantha Masters, nor the only European challenge Tour event, anymore be part of 2014 golf calendar. This will cause immense loss to local Pro Golf Tour of India (PGTI) as it is likely to lose almost 40% in its prize money.
The Indian rupee fall brought jitters to the golfing community when the nation’s most lucrative golf event — the $2.3-million (over Rs 15.4-crore) Avantha Masters decided to back out from the Indian golf calendar of 2014. The main sponsors cited that devaluation of Indian currency vis-à-vis US dollar has to be blamed for this.
The Avantha Group had been sponsoring the event since past four years. A press communiqué had stated that event’s scheduling and need for substantial increase in prize money are not possible under economic downturn.
The Kensville Gujarat Challenge was the other casualty of rupee this year. Only European Challenge Tour event in the country hosted in Ahmadabad since 2011 with a prize purse of 2,00,000 Euros (over Rs 1.7 crore) has been slashed from 2014 golf calendar.
Another toll of rupee is Golf Premier League, which celebrated its debutant success this February, but all set move overseas in 2014. To retain sponsor’s faith and to make it bigger and better, how stakeholders view it.
This means, country will be hosting just three Asian Tour events next year: the USD 1.25 million Indian Open and two USD 300,000 tournaments — the SAIL-SBI Open and the Panasonic Open. It is to be noted that all these three events last year were supported by Ministry of Tourism of India with sponsorship funds between US$ 100,000 to US$ 250,000. If the government is not ready to provide similar support this season, the sanctioning bodies will have to work harder to raise the balance funds.
The golf product buyers too suffered rupee jolt this year as all the golf products are imported into India. The players had to shell out more rupees to buy imported golf products.
However, the only silver lining comes from the fact that International sponsors will have more value for their dollar. Therefore, we can hope for forthcoming sponsor support at a realistic price, to cheer things up in 2014.
