Hilversum (Netherlands), July 18 : Tvesa Malik leads the Indian challenge at this week's Dutch Ladies Open, which is taking place at Hilversumsche Golf Club. Tvesa will have Vani Kapoor and Ridhima Dilawari for company as India's top star on the LET, Diksha Dagar, has taken time ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris. The 300,000 Euro event is the last LET event before the Olympic Games, where India will be represented by Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar.

Tvesa, a former Hero Order of Merit winner, lost her LET Tour card at the end of 2022. Since then she has since made her way back through a pre-qualifier in Asia late last year and then some invitations. She won her first international event on the Sunshine Tour in South Africa and of late has started finding her form on the main LET tour. She was T-10 at the Dormy Open and then lost in a play-off at the Swiss Open besides two other Top-25 finishes. In nine starts, she has missed only two cuts, but as she remarked the week in the Swiss Open has given her a lot of confidence.

Vani Kapoor has had a below-average season having missed half the cuts in 10 starts and has no Top-10s this season. Ridhima has got only five starts with her limited status and made the cut in three of them.

Tvesa will play the first round with Welsh golfer Chloe Williams and Marit Harryvan of the Netherlands, while Vani plays with English duo Hannah Burke and Florentyna Parker. Ridhima tees alongside Helen Tamy Kreuzer of Germany and Maiken Bing Paulsen of Norway.

Local star Anne Van Dam produced a fair result at last week's Amundi Evian Championship with rounds of 66-70-74-72 at Evian Resort Golf Club. It was her sixth cut of the year and ended the week in a tie for 44th place. Van Dam has been looking forward to this spell of summer golf which includes two majors, the Olympic Games, the Scottish Open and the Dutch Ladies Open.

Hilversumsche provides a tree-lined challenge this week, and having had plenty of rainfall in recent months the course is playing slightly differently than in 2023.

/IANS