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The four day professional event, the Surya Nepal Masters starts on Tuesday and climaxes in the final round on Saturday 7 June. All this is happening at the 18-hole Gokarna Golf Course at Le Meridien Kathmandu.
The event will begin with the much awaited Standard Chartered Pro-Am, where amateurs get the chance to play a competitive round with the best golfers in the region.
This event started in 1993 and from this year will be the main event of the Surya Nepal Golf Tour, which is sanctioned by Nepal Professional Golfers Association. Last year was a big success for Nepali golf as Deepak Thapa Magar became the first Nepali to win this event. This year, sharpened by practice on the Surya Nepal Golf Tour and more competing opportunities, the hosts have an equally good if not better chance of clinching the title.
Past winners Gurbazz Mann, Mukesh Kumar, Vijay Kumar and Feroz Ali have signed in for the tournament. Others include winner of the Asian tour Harmeet Kahlon, India's Asian Games silver medallist Joseph Chakola, and Sri Lanka's Anura Rohana with a strong field of other contenders from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.
his year the total purse of the event will be Rs 2 million. The winner gets a cheque for 17 percent of the total prize money. The Gokarna Golf Course has been spruced up into top shape for the tournament. The big boys from the tour will arrive by Monday as most of the top players will be playing the corporate Pro-Am event with local amateur players on Tuesday 3 June.
Whether or not you play golf, I urge you to come down to the golf course and get a feel of a large scale international sporting event where you as a spectator can enjoy not only the sport, but also a walk in the sunshine within the beautiful ambiance of Gokarna Forest.
Deepak Acharya is a golf instructor and golf director at Gokarna Forest Golf Resort & Spa, Kathmandu.
prodeepak(at)hotmail(dot)com
