Rashid Khan Tips Siddikur Rahman as Favourite in Bangladesh Open Golf

Indian golfer Rashid Khan, a two-time winner in 2014, will be among the favourites as Bangladesh gets ready to host its first-ever Asian Tour event at the Kurmitola Golf Club from Wednesday.

The Bashundhara Bangladesh Open will see a strong Indian challenge as the field includes seasoned Rahil Gangjee, Chiragh Kumar, Himmat Rai and Digvijay Singh, who is on a medical extension.

Besides, the field will also have youngsters such as Shubhankar Sharma, S Chikkarangappa, Angad Cheema, Abhijit Chadha, Shankar Das, Manav Jaini, Abhinav Lohan and Om Prakash Chouhan vying for honours.

Khan, however, tipped the local golfers, including Bangladesh's golfing superstar Siddikur, to do well on their home course.

"The locals have a lot of advantage playing here. There are a lot of players who do well here because of the local knowledge. It is the same when I play in Delhi," Khan said.

"This new event will help the local professional golfers. They need one good start through a tournament like this. It will help golf in Bangladesh. It can be the same thing for the other players as well."

There are more than two dozen Indians and the number is exceeded only by local Bangladesh players, who have about 30-odd players.

Khan, who has changed his driver recently, said: "I changed my driver in Mauritius (two weeks ago). It wasn't working there but I'm feeling comfortable now. It is more of a problem with my game. Once I'm comfortable with my tee shots then I'll be good."

On his own preparation, Khan said, "I met my mental coach before coming here and I told her that there's nothing wrong with my mental game. I'm just not finding enough fairways. I'm comfortable with my game now because I changed my driver. The key here is to find fairways. It is not a long golf course."

Speaking about Siddikur, he said, "He (Siddikur) is a good and calm player. He has been playing good golf for many seasons on the Asian Tour and that shows just how good he is."

There are another dozen Indians from the PGTI Tour, including the likes of Shamim Khan, Harendra Gupta and Feroze Ali.

The internationals stars, include Mardan Mamat of Singapore, a four-time winner on Asian Tour, Berry Henson of the United States, a winner on the Asian Tour, Thaworn Wiratchant of Thailand and Mithun Perera of Sri Lanka.

Mardan hailed the new event on the Asian Tour as the blueprint for other emerging markets to follow and stage tournaments on the region's premier golf circuit in the near future.

The 48-year-old veteran is riding a rich vein of form following a third place result in Mauritius two weeks ago but he feels that the local golfers including Siddikur will have a strong chance to win this week.