Dutchman Robert Timmers triumphed in round one of the Audi quattro Cup at the Royal Golf Club (RGC) yesterday.
The amateur golfer, resident in Bahrain for many years, racked up 37 points, under the Stableford scoring system, to qualify for round two, which will be held in April.
The Stableford system is a scoring system in golf which, rather than counting the total number of strokes taken, involves scoring points based on the number of strokes taken at each hole. The objective in Stableford, therefore, is to have the highest score – unlike traditional scoring methods in golf.
Around 70,000 amateur golfers from around the globe teed off in 38 countries to launch the 2022 edition of the annual tournament hosted by the luxury car brand. Their goal: to try and qualify for the final of the global tournament which will be held in Rome, Italy, in October.
To get there, however, these amateur golfers from each participating country will have to move through five more rounds, staged over six months, of the qualifying stages before it can be determined which two aspirants – winners and runners-up from each country – will make the trip to Rome.
The next five rounds will be played every month from April till August.
Held once a month, the tournament itself is a one-day, eighteen-hole affair and attracted a lot of interest in Bahrain, Jerome Ackerman, the tournament coordinator, said.
“We had more than 100 people sign up for the event,” Ackerman, who manages the RGC’s golf operations, added.
“A lot of expats played today and some Saudi golfers also came in to participate. And the percentage of Bahraini golfers was also quite high.”
The series, which started in 1991 with roughly 6,000 amateurs participating from eight countries, has grown exponentially over the last three decades with almost two million amateur golfers having participated in the popular series by now. It was staged in Bahrain for the first time in 2010.
With the event not having been held in Bahrain in 2021 because of Covid-19, there had been an outpouring of enthusiasm among the kingdom’s golfing community when the intention to go ahead with this year’s edition was announced, Ackerman said.
“This year, Bahrain is the only GCC country that is participating,” he added.
An unexpected, late-afternoon sandstorm threatened to leave proceedings unfinished as the last set of golfers were midway through their round. But the strong winds eventually subsided enough to allow the round to be completed.
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