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Bahrain Golf Association (BGA) vice-chairman Daij Khalifa hopes that the DP World Tour – Bahrain Championship, which started yesterday at the Royal Golf Club with 135 players from 30 countries competing for a purse of $2.5 million, will help promote golf in the kingdom.
Three amateur Bahrain golfers are participating in the tournament, which carries a winner’s prize of $425,000, with Frenchman Tom Vaillant taking the honours at the end of the first day with an eight-under-par 64.
“It is a source of great satisfaction for us at the Bahrain Golf Association and everyone involved to see this tournament – which so many months of planning and hard work have gone into – finally start in perfect conditions with a good first day for all concerned,” Khalifa told the GDN.
“It was calm and many players took advantage of the great weather conditions. We saw a bunch of players atop the leader-board with impressive scores early in the day. Around 25 players shot four-under and better. If the weather conditions stay the same over the next three days, we’ll see the cut line at four- or five-under.”
Unfortunately, the three Bahraini golfers – Fahad Abdulla Sultan Saleh Mubarak, Ahmed AlZayed and Khalid AlMaraisi – didn’t fare well and finished at the bottom of the leader-board.
AlMaraisi, who earned his place in the championship after winning the 2024 National Team Qualifying tournament, proved to be the best of the lot, carding an eight-over-par 80 to finish joint-129th with Saudi Arabia’s Khaled Attieh, who also qualified for the tournament by winning the 5th Bahrain Amateur Open last October.
Meanwhile, Mubarak, who bagged his championship slot by finishing as the best-placed local player in the same tournament, carded a 16-over-par 88 to finish joint-131st with AlZayed, who made it into the Bahrain Championship by becoming the best-placed player from the kingdom in the 15th King Hamad Trophy last November.
The BGA vice-president said the below-par performance of the three Bahrainis was probably because of their lack of experience at such a level.
“They didn’t do well today but that’s probably because this is their first experience of playing at this level,” Khalifa explained.
“Perhaps, they made too many mistakes in negotiating the course. We hope all three players do better today and card respectable scores.”
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