The most significant is the par-three seventh, which has gone up to 230 yards from the earlier 182, making it that much harder. The par-four third is now 443 from 411 yards and the par-four tenth is up to 474 from 428. The green is hard, but the rough has also been raised considerably, so the surprises may not only be for the first-timers here.

The pro-am event this year has a lot of political colour. Farooq Abdullah playing with Jeev Milkha Singh, Robert Vadra in Jyoti Randhawa’s company and General JJ Singh teaming up with Gaurav Ghei for the pre-event fun session. Kapil Dev gets Aussie legend Peter Senior’s company and Milkha Singh will try keep pace with last year’s domestic tour winner Ashok Kumar.