Otumfuo Osei Tutu II
The best in professional and amateur golf will converge at the Royal Golf Club, Kumasi (RGCK), from today to Sunday, May 12 to take part in the prestigious Vodafone 62nd Asantehene Open Golf championship.
This year’s event is part of the activities marking the 20th coronation of  Otumfuo Osei Tutu II as Asantehene. Record entries of 315 golfers have been received by the tournament organising team.
In a press release by Prof. Bernard Baiden, who heads the organising team, he indicated that the tournament has been restructured to conform to the standards of an open golf championship prescribed by the Ghana Golfers Association and world amateur golf championship.
The main events have, therefore, been restricted to players with a maximum handicap of 12 for men and 20 for ladies. Prof. Baiden, however, revealed that the management of RGCK has structured the tournament to accommodate every golfer as part of its open-door policy.
The event starts today with an 18-hole event for the ProAm category reserved for high handicap golfers (19-28 for men and 29-36 for ladies) paired with professional golfers.
This will be followed tomorrow by the 72-hole event for championship-men category (up to hcp 6) and an 18-hole event for seniors (above 60 years).
Then on Friday, the support category (hcp 13-18) for men 21-28 for ladies) will play over 18-holes.
Saturday and Sunday will be reserved for 36-hole events, including championship-ladies category (up to hcp 12), handicap-men (hcp 7 to 12) and handicap-ladies (hcp 13 to 20).
The support-ladies will also play on an 18-hole event on Saturday. A special competition reserved for employees of the tournament sponsors will take place tomorrow from 11:00am.
A record number of professional golfers are also expected to grace the occasion to compete for a record prize money.
In all, the club expects 50 local and nine foreign professionals to compete in this year’s event. The defending champion, Vincent Torgah, current West Africa leading professional golfer, is expected to be challenged by Ghana PGA champion Kojo Barnni and other top ranked professional like Emos Koblah, Victor Brave-Mensah, Godwin Sai and many others.
They will be joined by rookie professional golfers from RGCK, Maxwell Owusu-Bonsu and Kwabena Poku. The professional will be competing in two divisions, regular and seniors (above 50 years).
The 72-hole event is expected to start on Thursday, May 9 and end on Sunday, May 12, 2019.
The tournament will officially be opened by Otumfuo Osei Tutu II this Friday. This will be followed by a special dinner for golfers and sponsors on Saturday.
Otumfuo Osei Tutu II will return to the Royal Golf Club on Sunday to present awards to winners and officially close the tournament.