Yesterday, the president of the Namibia Professional Golf Association (PGA), Adri Basson, confirmed that defending champion Keith Horn will return to Windhoek to vie for the title with other top guns in his league.

The tournament will be played between November 6 and 9.

Former champion Anton Haig, who recently won the Malaysian Open and the Johnnie Walker Classic, will make a bid to reclaim his title, which has a prize tag of N$158 000 for the winner this time around.

Other notable foreign players who will be in action on the Namibian fairways and greens include Richard Stern, who won the Spanish Open this year, and Hennie Otto, who won the Italian Open.

Basson said the event will attract many other top players around Africa and Namibian players will also be in the thick of things.

Basson, Alec William and Joe Nawanga will lead the Namibian effort and with home-ground advantage, they will be expected to produce the goods.

Local leading golfers such as Francois Hanekom, Dough Jeffrey and former sprint king Frank Fredericks will be involved in the Pro-Am of the summer championships.

It will be the fifth edition of the championships and this time, its main sponsors Mobile Telecommunications Limited (MTC) has injected a whopping N$1,5 million for the staging of the competition.

It is co-sponsored by Volvo, locally managed by Wikus Bruwer who has been actively involved in golf over the years.

Bruwer earlier this year announced that a player who achieves a hole-in-one during the tournament will walk away with a brand new Volvo Escorter XC 60 worth N$400 000.

The inaugural sponsorships five years ago was N$500 000 and has now reached the N$1 million mark, attracting some of the finest players on the Sunshine Winter Tour circuit.

This year, the event will be held over the original four days, instead of three days like in the past.

Apart from pocketing the sizeable amount, the winner of the MTC Namibia PGA will also gain automatic entry into the Shanghai Classic later this year.

Basson said the PGA plans to have an outstanding championship this year and he believes that the players involved will deliver quality golf as they have been doing on the international circuit.

Past winners of the MTC NPGA include Mark Muelles, Anton Haig, Trevor Aiken and last year Keith Horn.

The tournament director for the Sunshine Winter Tour, Gary Todd, will direct the championship.

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