Tvesa and Dagar getting ready for ATS London
London: June 16: Diksha Dagar will look to re-kindle the great memories of her team triumph, even as Tvesa Malik, who has not been finding results as good last year, hopes the glorious but challenging Centurion Club, St Albans in London will get her going this week at the Aramco Team Series, which combines a team event with individual competition.
Last year at this very event Dagar was in the winning team and T-12 in individuals.
This week Dagar plays in the team with Ana Pelaez and Olivia Mehaffey and Tvesa, a captain once again, will go out with her teammates Sophie Witt and Elia Folch.
Tvesa said, “Hopefully, things will begin to fall in place soon. But there is still a lot of events left on the schedule. The addition of ATS (Aramco Team Series) events mean a lot to play for us. A good couple of results is what is the need right now. I have been training with (coach) Jesse Grewal Sir back home and last week Shubhankar (Sharma) who was there at the Scandinavian Mixed, also helped a little. Let’s see how it goes. The Centurion is a challenging course, but I have played here.”
On her season so far, she added, “I am not able to put a finger as to what is not working this year. If something works one week, something else is out of sync. I have not been able to play consistently though the game seems in decent shape. Basically, I have not been able to put a solid week together like I did many times last year.”
Tvesa came close to winning her maiden title at the Gant Championship last year and was runner-up, her best on the LET. In 2021 she had five Top-10s and another five in Top-20. This year she is still searching for her first Top-10.
On the team format, she said, “That’s a lot of fun. I enjoy it and picked Sophie Witt. Then we got Ella (Folch) as the random third member. One more amateur will be assigned to the team. We play the team event, but individually we need to focus on our game. If that works, all else will fall in place.”
Diksha Dagar, who last week played her first event this season in Europe before South Africa and Asia, missed the cut at Scandinavian Mixed. Winner of the South African Women’s Open in 2019, Diksha, has had a great boost this season winning the gold medal at the Deaflympics.
With her father, Col Narender Dagar, as her caddie, she sounded confident of her game and is looking forward to making mark after being a crucial third member of the team event last year alongside Germans Olivia Cowan and Sarah Schmitt.
The ATS Series this year has a new format. The teams will compete over only 36 holes – the Thursday and Friday – with $500,000 prizemoney being split between the lowest scoring fourballs.
Sweden’s Linn Grant, fresh from becoming the first woman to win a DP World event after her nine-shot win at last weekend’s Volvo Car Scandinavian Mixed, also opted for a countrywoman pick, with Sofie Bringer her choice.
The event is the second of five $1million Aramco Team Series tournaments on the LET calendar for 2022.
The final day of play will see only the lowest scoring 60 players and ties from the opening two days return to the course to battle it out for a share of another $500,000, this time in individual earnings.
