A great platform for local golfers

The Bashundhara Bangladesh Open, the first-ever Asian Tour event to be staged here later this month, will give Bangladeshi golfers a platform to challenge some of the best golfers from across Asia and beyond, hoped organisers during an agreement signing ceremony at a convention centre in the capital yesterday.

A total of 150 golfers -- 30 from Bangladesh, 10 from Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) and 110 from the Asian Tour including Bangladesh's best golfer Siddikur Rahman – will be vying for the 300,000–dollar event, which will be held from May 27 to 30 at the Kurmitola Golf Club.

The only regular Bangladeshi representative in the Asian Tour is Siddikur due to his wins on the tour while the other golfers from Bangladesh have to go through a qualifying stage if they want to participate in Asian Tour events.

But since this event is being staged in Bangladesh, 25 professional and five amateur golfers from Bangladesh will be able to take part in it, which is initially planned to be held over the next three years.

“Siddikur Rahman is a tremendous success story of Bangladesh in golf, but there are others who are waiting for this sort of platform to take their game to the next level,” opined Bangladesh Golf Federation's (BGF) secretary general brigadier general Abul Fazal Mohammad Sanaullah in his speech after signing the event agreement with Asian Tour representative Fritz Katzengruber.

Katzenburg said he was optimistic that the first edition of the Bashundhara Bangladesh Open would be a quality event where the skill and mental aptitude of the golfers would be tested.

“Even though the names of foreign participants cannot be confirmed before the registration window closes on May 6, we are more than assured that we would have a very good field with good seedings,” said Katzengruber in his welcome speech.

“I have inspected the golf course over the last couple of days and I think it is a 'thinking course' where only driving will not yield the best results,” added Katzengruber.

The BGF secretary general, meanwhile, informed that they would try to relocate the next two editions of the event during more pleasant time of the year and would also like to take it beyond Kurmitola, to places like the Bhatiary Golf Course in Chittagong or the Savar Golf Course.

The agreement signing ceremony was preceded by the logo unveiling session where Safwan Sobhan, additional managing director of Bashundhara Group, and Mohammad Shariz, an official of the Asian Tour, were present.