Kathmandu, October 30:

The Surya Nepal Ninth SAARC Golf Championship tees off at the Le Meridien Gokarna Forest Golf Resort on November 1 with national teams from six SAARC nations taking part.

This is the first time Nepal is hosting the bi-annual event. Surya Nepal’s sponsorship of this event is part of its corporate social responsibility initiative — Surya Nepal Khelpartyatan, which is to promote Nepal as a sports tourism destination.

Surya Nepal’s biggest golf sponsorship has been the Surya Nepal Masters, which it has been sponsoring for the past 13 years. The Surya Nepal Masters is the biggest international professional golf event Nepal hosts and the Surya Nepal Western Open is an event taken as a warm up for the Surya Nepal Masters.

This event has been promoted to establish Nepal as a major golfing destination and has been covered by Ten Sports, an exclusive sport television channel. The event has recently grown even bigger with sponsorships from other corporates like Standard Chartered Bank who

are the Pro-Am sponsors of the Surya Nepal Masters, as well as the Nepal Tourism Board who have been closely associated with this event.