Golfers to tee it up in Olympic C'ship

JAKARTA (JP): About 300 professional and amateur golf players will compete in the Olympic Golf Championship at Gunung Geulis Country Club, near Bogor, July 27 to July 30, the organizer said Wednesday.

Au Bintoro said of the 300 participants, six will come from Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan and Sweden. The six include professionals Malaysians Arief Sarji, Rashid Ismail and Shaifu Bahri, Japanese Tsuchiyama, Jakarta-based Swedish Stephen A. Lindskog and amateur Filipino Bennadict.

Lindskog is also the coach for the women's golf players in the Southeast Asian Games team. He won the 1998 Matoa Invitational at Matoa, outskirt of Jakarta near Depok.

"We only have five foreigners competing in the tournament to give opportunity to our local players. We hope to hold an international event next year bringing in more foreign players," Bintoro said.

A total cash prize of Rp 100 million (US$1,600) is offered to profesionals and amateurs.

Kasiyadi and Maan Nasim are among the local professional players taking part in the tournament while among the amateurs are Jemin S. Abdul Rochim and Ade Purwadji. Kasiyadi won last year's top national ranking tournament while Maan won the 1999 Bukit Darmo Open.

Bintoro also said that the four-day tournament will not be participated by golfers from SEA Games team.

"The SEA Games team are concentrating for next month's Games in Brunei so we have prohibited them in competing in the tournament," Bintoro added.

Manara Effendi of the Geulis Country Club said it was the first Olympic Golf Championship held by the club and all have been prepared for the tournament.

"The Club has two courses of 18 holes each and both will be used for the tournament. They are the West Course and the East Course. The West Course will be for the pro and amateur while the East Course will be for the Amateur On-handicap," Manara said.

Taufik Aziz, secretary general of the Indonesian Golf Association (PGI) said that the association had welcomed the tournament but hoped that the Club could hold it annually.

"PGI welcomes the holding of the Olympic Golf Championship and will lend any hands required to make the tournament a success. We hope that through the tournament, we could create talented amateur players who could later compete in international matches," Taufik said.

Taufik, however, was optimistic that through this tournament, golf will become more popular in the community. "I was annoyed to hear that not many people are not interested in golf. I only hope that with the tournament, this could incite more people to like golf," Taufik said. (lnt)