KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 6

The Royal Nepal Golf Club is organising the RNGC Open Birthday Cup to mark its 106th anniversary on Saturday.

A total of 140 players will take part in the two-day tournament which will be played under stableford ¾ handicap format, informed the organisers at a press meet today.

'As we are celebrating 106th anniversary of the oldest golf club of Nepal, we have invited players from all the golf clubs across the country,' said RNGC Captain Mithun Rai. 'We are expecting more than 50 guest players from other clubs including India, Australia and British Gurkha,' he added.

The RNG has already organised a junior tournament with participation of 35 players in Under-10 and Under-17 categories. 'As RNGC is the base of golf development, especially for junior players, we also allowed junior caddies and ball boys to participate in the tournament,' Rai said. 'We are happy to have more than 50 participants including non-golfers, who enjoyed the putting and chipping competition,' he added.

'It's going to be an epic tournament as we have invited members from other clubs and we are awarding the guest section winners with honorary membership of RNGC,' said Rai. 'We have a total of 20 prizes to be won and we have also arranged gift hampers and vouchers with an aim of promoting domestic tourism,' he said.

RNGC Honorary Secretary Krishna Kumar Agrawal said the club was celebrating 106th anniversary with enthusiasm. 'We are organising various programmes to mark the occasion but the mother club of golf is in danger of being removed despite being in existence for more than a century. It is sad that the RNGC does not have its own land for golfing and the fear of being removed from here always haunts us,' he said.

'The RNGC, which is currently using 125-ropani land under lease rent from the Civil Aviation Authority, provided shelter to thousands of people during the massive earthquake in 2015 and we also helped staff and their families with vaccine and food during the coronavirus pandemic. More than 300 people are directly or indirectly dependent on RNGC, which has 300-plus members and 75 caddies. The government had also listed RNGC under the green zone during the earthquake. We have been rightly doing what we needed to do to serve the society, through sports and social works. But the government has turned deaf ears to our pleas,' Agrawal added.

A version of this article appears in the print on September 07, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.