This year’s tournament has added appeal, with the winner to be offered a place in the main draw of the New South Wales Open Championship at Stonecutters Ridge in mid-November.

Queanbeyan Head-Pro Jake Nagle said that the extra draw card could see up to 200 players competing for the title on Saturday.

“I’d suggest we’re probably going to get close to 180-190 players,” he said.

“We’ve got a lot of entries from Sydney players… I think we might even have one or two coming up from Melbourne.”

But it shouldn’t deter the locals from putting in a strong showing.

“All our local guys are playing. I know a lot of guys from around the ACT clubs, a lot of the better golfers are all playing as well,” Nagle said.

“Our local guys will have a fair bit of course knowledge which is always in their favour. One of our young fellas has been playing pretty well, Lachlan Tisma… his form over the last two or three weeks has been pretty good.”

It’s the first time any event at Queanbeyan will act as a qualifier for the NSW Open.

“It’s the first time we’ve had it. I think it’s the first time NSW Golf has done anything like it,” Nagle said.

“I think they’ve handpicked six or 12 events around NSW. Luckily we were one of them.”

Queanbeyan is renowned as one of the more difficult courses in the district, and Nagle said around one or two under par for the 18 holes would probably be enough to win the event.

“We are a pretty tough golf course. I think if someone shot even par, they’d probably be in with a shot as well,” he said.

“If you ask most golfers we’re the most challenging in the district.”

Nagle said the toughest thing about the course was the real mixture of challenges it presents to a player.

“We’ve got three par fives, but two of them are very long. The greens are generally running very fast but true, plus we’ve got very tight fairways… you can’t get away with a bad shot,” he said.

“The course is in great condition, so anyone that does play here who hasn’t played here before is most likely going to tell everyone else about it.

“Word is getting around a bit, and I think… just being able to say we’ve held our Queanbeyan Cup that we’ve had for a long time. But the fact that it’s got this attached to it is always going to help.”

The Queanbeyan Cup will be held on Saturday, October 10, from 7:00am at Queanbeyan Golf Course.