Young Omani golfer Asma sets high aims

Muscat: Asma Al Rashdi, the Sultanate’s talented lady golfer, has chalked out ambitious plans for 2016 as she embarks on a new season of action.
The Muscat-based youngster has decided to take part in more number of tournaments this year, and her target is to bring down her handicap score by the end of the year.
“A new year has begun, and I do have a new approach to it in terms of goals and ambitions,” Asma said.
“I want to lower my handicap. That’s my primary target in the coming months. And to achieve that goal, I need to play in a lot of tournaments.
"So, I should be participating in competitive events more frequently this year than I used to.”
Asma, along with her friend and Muscat-based player Huwaida Al Barwani, had been in the news in Oman’s sports circles over the past one year or so as the two most prominent rising talents in ladies’ golf.
The duo had bagged the team bronze for Oman at a GCC championship in Kuwait in April 2015, and since then, Asma has been eyeing more glory and an improvement in her game.
The young Asma, who is in her teens, is quite a big fan of the world’s No. 1 lady golfer Lydia Ko of New Zealand. The Omani player says she draws inspiration from Lydia’s success at a very young age and she wants to progress in golf by emulating the New Zealander.
In February 2015, Lydia had become the youngest ever professional world No. 1 at the age of 17, including both men’s and ladies’ circuits.
“To be one of the ladies in Oman who play golf is not enough,” Asma candidly says, pointing to the fast-rising standards and her own ambition to improve. “I want to be like Lydia. She is the best lady golfer in the world right now. I aim to be like her.”
Asma currently trains at the Ghala Golf Club under the guidance of PGA Pro Milo Breitenwischer, who has been tutoring the ladies in the past on behalf of the Oman Golf Committee (OGC).
Asma has already become a well-known name in the golfing fraternity in Oman, and she is also a known face at Muscat’s four golf clubs.
The OGC, which has recently doubled its efforts to produce lady golfers through a fresh talent development programme, has been backing Asma to the hilt.
The OGC Chairman, Mundhir Al Barwani, a strong campaigner for ladies’ golf in the Sultanate, said: “Asma as a golfer is a huge asset for Oman. I wish her the best this year and in the years to come. She has already convinced us and everybody about her playing and fighting abilities. She also has a hunger to learn, which vindicates her ambitions as a growing golfer.”