From L-R – Rakshit Dahiya, Arin Ahuja & Deepak Yadav
India’s national women’s amateur team were notably absent from the World Amateur Team Championship last week in Singapore — a result of the International Golf Federation’s invitation process, which combines the World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR) of a country’s top two players at a set cut off date ( August 15 in this case) as per information received by India Golf Weekly from the Indian Golf Union. India’s combined WAGR for the top two ladies did not place inside the top 36 countries in the women’s section, ruling them out of this year’s field.
From The winning USA Team – Catherine Park, Farah O’Keefe and Megha Ganne
The United States women’s team captured a record 15th title on a tiebreak over Spain and defending champions Korea at the Tanah Merah Country Club . All three teams finished tied at 18-under 558, but it was Indian-American Stanford star Megha Ganne’s even-par 72 in the third round that proved decisive in the tiebreak, giving USA the edge over Spain’s 73.
Ganne, the recently crowned U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, was instrumental throughout the week, carding rounds of 69-75-72-68 (4-under 284) and closing with a bogey-free 68. “We don’t often get to play for our country, so to win this way means everything,” said Ganne. “It’s a heartbreaking tiebreaker for Korea and Spain, but we knew every score could count.”
Spain and Korea shared silver, while England and China tied for fourth, two strokes behind.
By contrast, the 3 member Indian men’s team, comprising of newcomer Arin Ahuja with the slightly more experienced Rakshit Dahiya, and Deepak Yadav, will play this week for the Men’s title. Their invitation was secured thanks to the strong combined WAGR of Kartik Singh and Veer Ganapathy, both of whom were amateurs at the time of cutoff. In an ironical twist – both Kartik and Veer chose to turn pro after the cut off invitation date of August 15th and will not represent India this week.