Keita Nakajima is excited to return to the Hero Indian Open as defending champion after securing a maiden DP World Tour title at DLF Golf and Country Club last season.
Related: Richard Mansell ends title wait at Porsche Singapore Classic
The Japanese cruised to a four-shot wire-to-wire triumph over home favourite Veer Ahlawat, Swede Sebastian Söderberg and American Johannes Veerman 12 months ago, on just his 11th DP World Tour start.
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The 24-year-old arrives back in India full of confidence following a runner-up finish at last week’s Porsche Singapore Classic, subsequently climbing to 20th position on the Race to Dubai Rankings and has now set his sights on securing dual membership with the PGA TOUR.
He is joined in the field by a buoyant Richard Mansell with the Englishman moving to the top of the Asian Swing Rankings after edging out Nakajima to secure his maiden DP World Tour victory in Singapore on Sunday.
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Indian stars Shubhankar Sharma, S.S.P Chawrasia, Gaganjeet Bhullar and Ahlawat, who secured playing rights on the DP World Tour for 2025 after topping last year’s TATA Steel PGTI Ranking, will be seeking success on home soil.
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Sharma, a two-time DP World Tour winner, is currently the highest ranked Indian player on the Official World Golf Ranking in 264th, while four-time winner Chawrasia is looking to win his national open for a third time following back-to-back victories in 2016 and 2017.
The 2025 edition of the event will mark Hero’s 17th year as Title Partner. Hero MotoCorp, headquartered in New Delhi (India), has been the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters for 24 consecutive years.
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The Hero Indian Open is the second of four events on the Asian Swing, with back-to-back events in China on the schedule in the weeks to come. DP World Tour Members who finish in positions one to three in the final Asian Swing Rankings will be exempt into the 2025 US PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club.
Player Quotes
Keita Nakajima (JPN): Last year, winning here was so great. It gave me a lot of confidence in my first season and also I was able to play all the way to the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
This is a tough course. I’m very proud of how I played last year, and I will just remain patient again this year. I’m excited to play again in this tournament and honoured to be back as a defending champion. Of course, I want to win but it is a tough golf course so I have to just commit to one shot at a time.
Last week in Singapore, the performance was great. I had five or six weeks off, but I was prepared for this Asian swing. I finished second but I was playing great and I still feel positive this week. I will try to give my best performance this week.
I want to win this tournament again and I want to earn dual membership on the PGA TOUR next year by finishing inside the top ten on the Rankings. It’s five Japanese players playing on the PGA TOUR and this is so good for Japan.
Richard Mansell (ENG): No one warns you how tiring winning is but in a good way. It’s a lot of emotions. Years of hard work went into it and to finally get it done and have some family and friends there was really cool so now we move on to India.
I know this week is going to be really tricky, we’ve got a tough golf course, hot temperatures and it is tiring winning, it did take it out of me but I’m playing some good golf. I’ve got one more week to prepare as well as I can to try and win another golf tournament and then I’ve got five weeks off to really celebrate.
I played here last year, it’s special. There are some amazing holes, there’s not a blade of grass out of place, you can see how much effort goes into the place. I think it’s a golf course you need to have some confidence on because if you’re not, you don’t want to be teeing it up.
I think the difference between 70 and 80 is not very much here, you can rack up numbers so it’s important to stay present and focused out here which is tricky with the extreme weather.
