HA NOI — The Viet Nam Golf Association (VGA) has organised the nation’s largest-ever tournaments for men and women at the Da Lat Palace Golf Club in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong.

Men will vie for titles in several categories at the four-day, 72-hole competition, the Viet Nam Amateur Open, a new version of the Viet Nam National Championship scheduled to kick off on Thursday.

Three-time Da Lat Palace Golf Club champion Andrew Legge and the winner of last year’s National Championship, Huynh Van Son, are among the golfers who have put their names down to battle for the men’s title.

They will have to compete against about 120 rivals from countries across the region, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Brunei.

This year’s tournament is open to any non-professional in the region over the age of 23. Competitors must have handicaps of nine or better to be eligible for the event. Ten prizes will be given to those with the lowest score at the end of the four days’ 72 holes.

Meanwhile, 54 female golfers will compete for three days on 54 holes, with the four best players receiving awards.

"We stopped taking applications the second week of May because we had already topped out the fields with the region’s premier amateur players," said VGA general secretary Nguyen Ngoc Chu, who is also chairman of the tournament’s organising committee.

"Part of the reason for that is a twist we threw in – allowing all of the country’s current club champions to enter. We think that by opening it up more, interest in the game will increase," Chu added.

The cut-off to advance will be determined after the second round of each tournament, trimming the men’s field down to 30 players and the women’s to 12. The remaining women will play one more round to determine the champion, while the outstanding men will play two, with the victors hoisting their trophies at an awards presentation on Sunday afternoon.

Both the awards ceremony and the final round will be broadcast live on VTV television.

The Da Lat Club is adding length to the rough and speed to the bent-grass greens as part of its preparations for the competition.

"June is typically a fairly wet time of the year up here, so you’re not going to get a whole lot of roll out of your shots," said Jeff Puchalski, the tournament director and the club’s general manager/director of golf. "But the course will be fair. It’s a mile above sea level, so the thinner air will make up for the track’s lack of firmness."

The Da Lat Club is considered an ideal course for national and international tournaments due to the number of accolades it has won from experienced players. Golf Digest USA rated the course best in Viet Nam in its last four Planet Golf surveys, and Asian Golf Monthly readers voted it No1 in the country last year.

The Da Lat Club is also renowned for its history. The course was first laid out in the early 1920s and has led several lives as the course of choice for Viet Nam’s imperial court and colonial elite.

Renowned French architect Ernest Hebrard included the club in the master urban design plan for Da Lat in 1922. — VNS