The HotelPlanner Tour returns after almost a month-long break. It resumes in India, in Kolkata, for the Kalkota Challenge starting this Thursday. It will be a mini-tour of two tournaments, concluding next week with the Delhi Challenge.
Pay close attention to the club hosting this week’s event in the second division of the European circuit. Royal Calcutta Golf Club, perhaps not as well-known in the minds of golf enthusiasts, is the oldest golf club in the world outside the islands. It was founded in 1829 and received the Royal title 81 years after its creation, following the visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. A walking jewel.
It’s true that the course where the golfers will play this week is not the same as the one inaugurated almost two centuries ago, nor is it in the same location; it is 18 kilometres from the original site, which is now where the airport is located. Royal Calcutta Golf Club has been settled in the ‘new’ venue since 1910. Not bad either.
The course is a 6611-metre, par 72 layout with only two par 3s and two par 5s. The climate is especially humid, and the greatest challenge lies at the tee. It is a very wooded setting with a very high and challenging Bermuda rough.
A year ago, this course returned to the circuit with disastrous results for the Armada’s interests. For the first time in five years, no Spanish player made the cut in a Challenge Tour tournament. The seven national representatives packed their bags early. Obviously, this situation has not occurred again in the past twelve months. However, last year’s tournament will go down in history. At least it will be a significant milestone in the career of Rasmus Neergard-Pettersen. Kolkata witnessed the birth of a star, and we’ll see what galaxies he can reach. The Dane won the first of his three tournaments on the circuit before moving up to the DP World Tour and retaining his card, all in the same year.
Hopefully, the tournament brings the same luck this year for one of our own. Albert Boneta, Santi Tarrío, Adri Arnaus, Sebastián García, Lucas Vacarisas, Quim Vidal, and Victor Pastor. The last three precisely played last year and faltered at the historic complex.
What better place with so much history for one of our own to achieve the first Spanish victory of the season on the circuit? Lucas Vacarisas arrives in India fifteenth in the Road to Mallorca and as the best Spaniard on the leaderboard. He might be the Armada’s favourite, but with any of the other six in the equation, last year’s outcome might just be anecdotal, and we could see one of our own fighting for a good result in Kolkata.
The tournament, co-sanctioned with the Professional Golf Tour India, will feature a local golf hero like S.S.P Chawrasia, a four-time champion on the DP World Tour. All his victories on the circuit have been on home soil, and he will fight to be the first local player of the season to win a title in the Challenge.
Check the live results of the Kalkota Challenge
