Castleknock’s David Carey will headline this year’s Irish Alps Tour contingent when the new season gets underway in Egypt today.
As the Alps Tour celebrates its platinum anniversary in 2020, the twentieth season tees off at the Sokhna Golf Club with the Ein Bay Open starting this week and the Red Sea Little Venice Open starting on 23rd February.
Located on the North of the Red Sea, just an hour’s drive from Cairo, the Sokhna Golf Club features a 27-hole Championship Golf Course designed by John Sanford and Tim Lobb.
Carey, who secured his maiden professional win on the Tour last year at the Cervino Open in Italy, will be hoping to hit the ground running as he looks to step up his chase of European Tour promotion this term.
Tour regulars Jonathan Yates and Michael and Peter Dallat are also in the field while West Waterford’s Gary Hurley, who showed sprouts of form towards the end of last season, will look to build some momentum ahead of another year on Tour.
Galway’s Ronan Mullarney completes the Irish line-up as he takes his first steps into his Rookie year as a professional.
In-all, 120 players from 19 countries and 4 different continents will compete, most notably, the Italian, Edoardo Lipparelli, winner of the Open de Saint Francois Region Guadeloupe and winner of the 2019 Order of Merit.
His countryman, Luca Ciancetti, winner of the Katameya Dunes Open is also present as well as the Spanish player Gonzalo Vicente Elena, winner of the Fred Olsen Alps de La Gomera.
The Ein Bay Open will be played on Courses A and B a par 72, 6963 yards/6367 metres while the Little Venice Open the following week will be played on Courses B and C, a par 72, 6641 yards/6073 metres.
The format for both is 54 holes of stroke play with the cut after 36 holes.
With the weather forecast to be warm and sunny, the conditions should be ideal for the start of the new season and for the players to start sinking some birdies as this season sees the first player to achieve 240 of them receiving a €20,000 bonus.
Let the games begin!
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