Amby Valley PGAI Tour leader Ashok Kumar warned up in style for the Tata Open 2004, with a brilliant six-under 64 at the curtain raising pro-am played at the par-70 Beldih and Golmuri Golf Courses here today. Ashok in quest for his fifth straight Amby Valley PGAI Tour title is the top contender for the Rs 2,43,000 winner’s cheque at the Rs 15 lakh Tata Open.

Earlier India’s shooting star and Olympic silver medalist Rajyavardhan Rathore inaugurated the event in the august company of the man behind the event, B Muthuraman, Managing Director - Tata Steel. After an enthralling day’s play top honours went to the team led by former All-India amateur champion Harinder Gupta. Harinder fired a one-under 69 and at 37 points led his team of Farzan Heerje, Sanjay Verma and A Mohanty to the title at a tally of 111 points. The prizes were given away jointly by B Muthuraman and Rajyavardhan Rathore at a prize  distribution ceremony held later in the evening.

The tournament was played on a Team Stableford format where the two best net scores out of the three amateurs plus the professional’s score which was mandatory counted towards the team score.

Ashok was once again in the limelight as his team of  B Muthuraman, Ryan D’ Costa and Harish Pathak finished second at 109 points. Tour veteran Rohtas Singh and his team of Sandeep Adesara, MK Jha and Sanjeev Paul finished third at 105 points. Harinder as the pro in the winning team was richer by  Rs 5,000 while Ashok and Rohtas earned Rs 3,000 and Rs 2,000 respectively. While Ashok earned an additional Rs 3000 for returning the ‘Best Individual Round by a Professional’ at 40 points, DS Raghuvanshi and Vinod Kumar who tied at 38 points each, shared Rs 1,000 apiece for finishing second in that category.

The ‘Best Amateur Individual Round’ was carded by Umang Jhunjhunwala who beat Rajinder Sachdev to the post on a count-back after the two finished tied at 40 points apiece. Among the professionals participating in the pro-am were the likes of current Order of Merit leader and winner of four events this season, Ashok Kumar; thrice Order of Merit winner, Mukesh Kumar; Rookie golfer and winner of the Amby Valley-MGC Open 2004 (Chennai), Shiv Kapur; 2002 Indian Open winner, Vijay Kumar; twice Honda Siel PGA Championship winner, Uttam Singh Mundy; twice Indian open winner (’91 & ’93) Ali Sher; Asian PGA Tour stars Indarjit Bhalotia and Gurbaaz Mann and winner of over 100 professional titles in a career spanning over 35 years, Rohtas Singh among others.