Recently, we had Volvo playing games. Car makers have started promoting their brands through sports, and now, Toyota too wants to play along. The National Junior Golf Tour has found a long term sponsor in Toyota Kirloskar Motors. The quest to explore India’s talent, to discover potential Olympians to represent our country at the 2016 Olympic Games has already kicked off. The Toyota Etios Tour 2010 at the Golden Greens Golf Resort Gurgaon has begun.

120 junior golfers in the age group of 10 – 18 yrs will be participating in this elite level national ranking championship. National and international junior team selections are entirely based on the performance of the junior golfers during this tour. Toyota indeed has done a great job sponsoring the tour.

The development of junior golf in India gets high support here and the annual golf tour encourages the Indian junior golfers to focus on intensification of their preparation for training programs.  There’s nothing more encouraging than the Etios Junior Golf Tour to nurture young talent.  The Toyota Etios Junior Golf Tour does what it can to inculcate in today’s young players the focus and the drive required to emerge as winners in prestigious international forums such as the Asian Junior Amateur Championship and ultimately, the 2016 Olympic Games.

“We welcome Toyota as the new title sponsor of the IGU’s National Junior Tour. We are very pleased to have Toyota and Rishi Narain Golf Management associated with this tour which will surely lift the tour to a new level of professionalism. We see huge potential in our juniors and there is no doubt that this is the training ground where we will find the players for the 2016 Olympics and beyond”, said Maj Gen Parmar, Director General, Indian Golf Union.

The Toyota Etios Junior Golf Tour consists of seven 4-day tournaments every year.  The seven tournaments have been spread across regions all over India with one of these tournaments in April, three in May, two in November and one in December. Following one practice round on day one, this 4-day event begins on April 27th and is the Indian Golf Union’s official National Junior Tour.  The schedule will be exciting. Top ranked IGU merit list players will be competing in 4 age group categories, “16 – 18”, “14 – 16”, “12- 14” and “10 -12”.

The Toyota Etios Junior Golf Tour marks a new epoch in junior golf. The current National Men’s Champion, Chikkarangappa from Bangalore will be leading the charge at age 16. He will play at least four tournaments on the Junior Tour.  Ashbir Saini, the recent Nepal Open winner who beat several top professionals in Kathmandu, will also be joining.

Top juniors participating would be Manu Gandas ( #1 ) from DLF GC Gurgaon, #2 Shubhankar Sharma from Army GC, Delhi and Honey Baisoya #3 from Delhi GC from the 14-16 yr age group. In the 12 – 14 yr category, in action will be #! Piyush Snagwan from DLF GC, #2 Virad Madappa from Kokota, #3 Firoz Garewal from Chandgarh and #4 Vidhit Singh from Delhi. In the 10 – 12 Yr category, #1 Karandeep Kochar who won 6 tournaments last year leads the field from Chandigarh, #2 Arjun Puri of Delhi and #3 Arjun Prasad from Hyderabad are the top ranked players.

If the Volvo S80 was presented to the man of the series at the India-South Africa ODI tournament, here we have the entire golf event sponsored by Toyota. Way to go Toyota!