NEW DELHI: Indian cricket legend Kapil Dev, currently serving as the president of the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), believes that athletes in other sports work just as hard as cricketers, if not harder. However, he feels they usually don’t receive the recognition and spotlight they truly deserve.
“Cricket is not the only thing in the world. There are other sports as well. Even though cricket has given me respect, face, and everything, I always maintain that every other sportsperson also works very hard. They have given me this opportunity to sit on this chair and if I can bring the change in golf and other sports, I would be very delighted and happy,” Kapil Dev told the reporters during the PGTI press conference, hosted at the Delhi Golf Club.
Announcing the first half of the 2025 PGTI schedule, the 66-year-old on Monday confirmed that four new events have been added to this year’s calendar.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!
The schedule includes 11 events over 11 consecutive weeks, with a total prize pool of Rs 15.66 crore (excluding the Indian Open).
The 2025 season will commence with the PGTI Players Championship in Kolkata on February 11.
This will be followed by ten other tournaments, including the prestigious Kapil Dev-Grant Thornton Invitational, which will conclude the first half of the tour in the penultimate week of April.
Among the four new events, PGTI has introduced the Chhattisgarh Open Golf Championship (February 25–28), marking its first-ever PGTI tournament in the region. The other new additions are the PGTI Invitational (April 1–4), the Indorama Open Golf Championship (April 9–12), and the Calance Open (April 15–18). The prize money for these events is set at Rs 1 crore, Rs 1.5 crore, Rs 2 crore, and Rs 1 crore, respectively.
When asked about the perception of golf being an expensive sport for the common people in India, Kapil responded, “Golf is not more expensive than cricket. People believe it is, but that’s not true. If you invest in a set of clubs and a ball and play good golf, it can actually be much cheaper than playing cricket.”
Another significant development is the revival of PGTI’s second-tier tour after a five-year hiatus, now reintroduced as PGTI NexGen events.
Three PGTI NexGen tournaments, each featuring a prize purse of Rs 20 lakh, are scheduled for the first quarter of 2025 at venues in Phillaur, Kapurthala, and Golden Greens in Gurugram.
Three international events are set to take place as part of the schedule. These include joint-sanctioned tournaments: the Indian Open (March 27–30), offering a prize purse of USD 2.25 million, and the Kolkata Challenge (March 13–16) and Delhi Challenge (March 20–23), each featuring a prize pool of USD 300,000.
The total prize purse for the first half of the 2025 season has increased by Rs 4.5 crore compared to the same period in 2024.
Furthermore, the number of events has grown from nine to 11, reflecting Kapil’s vision of providing greater opportunities to aspiring golfers.
