Vijay and Randhawa start favourites in the championship which will see around 100 professionals and 12 amateurs in action. Leader of the current Order of Merit in the Indian PGA Tour Vijay Kumar already has four victories to has credit. Incidentally, Vijay has already crossed the Rs. one million prize mark for this season.

Winner of the Hero Honda Masters, Randhawa is high on morale after his successful tour at Dubai where he finished eighth in the just concluded Dubai Creek Golf beating World No. 2 Mark' O Meara. Jyoti and Vijay face stiff challenge from Arjun Atwal, fresh from his stint at an Australian PGA event in Sydney, Vivek Bhandari, Basad Ali, Shiv Prakash, Gaurav Ghei, Rohtas Singh and Feroz Ali.

Arjun Singh, who though hassent his entry, is likely to miss the event to due an injury.The tournament, which is the 21st event of the Wills Sports Golf Tour's 1998-99 season will see the cut being applied at the end of the second round. The winner will earn Rs 83,300 while the runners up pockets Rs 55,550.