The Surya Nepal Premier Golf Championship, introduced for the first time in the domestic golf circuit, is set to tee off at the Gokarna Golf Club on Monday.  

The eighth and final event of Surya Nepal Golf Tour 2016-17, the Nepal Premier Golf offers Rs 1.2 million in prize money with the eventual winner to take home Rs 230,000.

Top pros will vie for the trophy with Nepal No 1 Shivaram Shrestha being the top contender. Shrestha is by far the most successful professional golfer of the country with 35 major titles.

The Royal Nepal Golf Club pro Shrestha has won 33 out of 75 events played under the Surya Nepal Golf Tour since its inception in 2008-09.

He won the first of the long list of majors in 2005 with the Surya Nepal Western Open triumph as an amateur golfer.

Ever since he has been a dominant figure in golf. He turned pro from the Singha Golf Tour in Thailand in 2007.

His best moment as a pro came in 2013 when he clinched the Surya Nepal Master, the flagship event of the Surya Nepal Golf Tour then, by edging past top Indian and Bangladeshi pro.

That towering success was followed by a prestigious Player of the Year honour under Pulsar Sports Award organised by the Nepal Sports Journalists Forum.

Shrestha has also been plying his trade in the Professional Golf Tour of India from 2008 to 2015 but could not achieve any significant success.

He began the Surya Nepal Golf Tour 2016-17 by winning four successive titles—Surya Nepal Eastern Open, Surya Nepal Western Open, Surya Nepal Challenge and Surya Nepal Central Open.

His winning sequence ended in the Surya Nepal Kathmandu Open won by Rabi Khadka.

He also crashed out in the semi-finals of the Surya Nepal NPGA Match Play won by Rame Magar.

The top pro returned to his winning ways by lifting the Surya Nepal Tour Championship and will be eager to add to his tally by winning the Nepal Premier, which is by far the most lucrative of all the other Surya Nepal Tour events.