Under his leadership, PGTI secured a multi-year partnership early this year with global logistics leader DP World, which became the official Title Partner and Official Umbrella Partner of the tour. Since becoming president of the Professional Golf Tour of India in June 2024, Dev spearheaded a major financial and operational transformation of golf in India.
Cricket legend Kapil Dev’s push to attract major sponsors and raise prize money in Indian golf is helping create better pathways for the country’s players to qualify for the Olympics and compete globally, DP World PGTI CEO Amandeep Johl said.
Key Factors
“You see the DP World India Championship is coming in October again to the Delhi Golf Club. If more and more tournaments like that happen, Indian golf will become global. Those global players are used to a certain level of prize money. As the prize money goes up, the world ranking points go up. So it is very directly proportional,” he explained. Then our players have a better chance to compete for the Olympics and the Asian Games. Under the modern Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) field-rating system, ranking points are heavily determined by the strength and depth of the competing field. Higher prize purses attract higher-ranked international players.
Because it means more world ranking points, “So our idea is to grow the DP World PGTI in such a way that if I have higher prize money events, bigger global players will come. For example, multiple Major winner Rory McIlroy played in the inaugural USD 4 million DP World India Championship last year.
Johl said increasing prize money was directly linked to helping Indian golfers earn more world ranking points and qualify for elite global events.
