(Provided by Tennis World USA)
Great achievement for the Italian Paralympic athlete Josè Bagnarelli, called up by Captain Tineke Loogman to be part of Team Europe in the next Cairns Cup 2024, scheduled in Detroit, Michigan, on the Cherry Creek Golf Club course.
An exciting and gratifying experience the work that the Lombard golfer has carried out in recent years and which demonstrates how the Italian Golf Federation, through a dedicated technical sector, places its attention on the Paralympic movement, also in the framework of the 2023 Ryder Cup Project.
The Cairns Cup, players
The Cairns Cup, also known as The Billy, is the equivalent of the Ryder Cup for golfers with disabilities.
A young competition born from the Phoenix Cup 2018, a competition that saw European golfers compete against a selection of US golfers, in Florida at the Rotonda Golf Club. A selection criterion is established for each team which makes the event inclusive and gives everyone, regardless by golf ability and disability, the possibility of being selected.
In fact, each team will be made up of no more than 16 players and each team must have at least 6 different disabilities. Each team has the obligation to choose players from at least 6 different countries in Europe and 6 different states in the United States.The denomination ”The Billy”, which comes from the premature death of Billy Cairns, a member of Team Europe, who passed away a few days before the start of the Phoenix Cup.
To date, the Cairns Cup CIC, a non-profit company, is strong growth and works to promote more and more opportunities for American and European golfers with disabilities.Josè Bagnarelli last April, on the occasion of the presentation of the awards for the first classified of the Order of Merit of the Paralympic Sector FIG 2022 which took place at the Italian Open disability by Sanofi, received the prize for the first place obtained in the “even” classification ”.The Cairns Cup is played over 3 days with 6 Fourball, 6 Foursome and 12 single matches, the winning side will require 13 points for victory however, if the result is a tie the holders will retain the trophy.
