Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
THREE soccer legends have flown over to Bahrain to take part in tomorrow's second annual Royal Golf Club Pro-Am tournament, writes STAN SZECOWKA.
Queens Park Rangers, the Gulf Air-sponsored team currently riding high in the Championship and hoping to secure promotion into the English Premier League will be represented by a hat-trick of heroes, namely Marc Bircham, Steve Wicks and Keith Ryan.
The event is set to become one of the most popular events on Bahrain's golfing calendar. It marks the climax of the 36-hole Gulf Air PGA Pro Captain Challenge which is hosted at the club on the preceeding two days.
The seven UK-based PGA golf professionals who are in Bahrain to compete in that tournament stay on for an extra day to lead a team each in the Pro-Am competition.
PGA professionals based at the Royal Golf Club, including GulfWeekly columnist Chris Kelby and others from around the region will also take part.
With a generous prize pool to be won as well as some fabulous hole-in-one prizes up for grabs, the team alliance competition will be fierce.
Each player will need to excel at competing as part of a team and the professional most capable at getting the best from his three amateur teammates is likely to walk away with the top prize.
Golf is probably the most played second sport of many current and former professional footballers and are frequent guests when it comes to pro-am tournaments.
The best golfer at QPR is defender Peter Ramage who currently plays off 12 but the former stars representing the club in Bahrain are confident they will put up a good show.
Bircham, 31, is a QPR legend in every sense of the word. Having grown up supporting the London club, few gave more to the cause than the no-nonsense midfielder, who even dyed his hair blue and white midway through his QPR career, which spanned some six seasons.
He was forced to retire from the sport earlier this year owing to an ankle injury but as part of a backroom reshuffle at QPR over the summer, he returned to his boyhood club as Youth Team Coach in August.
