Gurugram, March 24 Five years after he first planned to come and play at the Hero Indian Open, world No. 22 and three-time PGA Tour winner Akshay Bhatia will finally make his debut in his parent's home country this week at the course designed by Gary Player.
The 24-year-old Indian-American left-hander, who recently won the Arnold Palmer Invitational, currently occupies third place on the FedEx Cup standings.
The strong field includes five players from the Top-100 in the world.
The field also includes Eugenio Chacarra, the first Spaniard to triumph at the event. He will be back to defend his title after claiming his maiden DP World Tour victory at DLF G&CC last year.
Italian Francesco Molinari, a Ryder Cup hero, will make his first appearance at the Hero Indian Open.
Bhatia, who has three PGA Tour wins, said, "I am very excited. This was supposed to happen in 2020 to come here and play. Obviously COVID happened and the trip didn't happen, but I am happy to be here for the first time. Really excited. The golf course looks very difficult from what I've seen. And I just really look forward to being here and exploring some of Delhi."
On his desire to come and play in India, he added, "Yeah, definitely always been something I always wanted to do. It is a place that obviously means a lot to us. Just obviously being on the PGA Tour now and to be of Indian heritage and to compete here and have a lot of fans based here is really cool."
Bhatia's parents, Sonny and Renu, hail from India and lived in Delhi, before they migrated to the United States.
Bhatia was born in California in 2002.
"Yeah, obviously very happy to be here. Dr (Pawan) Munjal has been amazing to us, to my family, and a great relationship that we've built over the last couple years since I turned pro. But yeah, I mean, I've watched so many highlights of this event. (And I saw) how hard the golf course is."
"I've already seen a couple kids come up to me, which is really cool. Didn't know that I'd ever get to experience this as a 24-year-old. So very blessed to be in this position to play this tournament in the Indian Open."
The Indian challenge will be led by Shubhankar Sharma, the only Indian in this field to have won on the DP World Tour. He had two wins on the Tour.
He will be joined by countrymen Rayhan Thomas, another Hero MotoCorp Brand Ambassador who has been on the Korn Ferry Tour for last two years, and 2024 runner-up Veer Ahlawat.
Other leading Indians will include Yuvraj Sandhu, Manu Gandas, Saptak Talwar, a regular on Hotel Planner Tour, and Om Prakash Chouhan, a former PGTI Order of Merit winner.
Francesco Molinari was the first player from Italy to win a Major Championship when he triumphed at The 147th Open in 2018. The six-time DP World Tour winner has also represented Europe in three victorious Ryder Cup teams, in 2010, 2012 and 2018 – where he secured the winning point at Le Golf National in Paris to claim five points from five matches.
Francesco will be joined by older brother Edoardo in a star-studded field. The Molinari brothers memorably teamed up in the 2010 Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor as part of the victorious European team, a year after winning the World Cup of Golf together for Italy in 2009.
The field also includes the in-form Casey Jarvis who will tee it up here following consecutive victories at the Magical Kenya Open and Investec South African Open Championship at the start of the month. The latter earned him a place at The Masters in April and The 154th Open in July.
The 59th staging of the Hero Indian Open is the second of the four counting events on the Asian Swing, which is the third of five 'Global Swings' on the 2026 Race to Dubai.
