the turkish president says 41 people are now known to have died in a coal mine disaster in the north of the country after rescuers recovered the last dead body. recep tayyip erdogan has been visiting the site of the tragedy at amasra on the black sea. now on bbc news, the rise of women s golf in india. 20 years ago, professional golf for women in india didn t exist. i fell in love with putting when i was five and a half. my teachers weren t very happy that i would take so much leave from school to play tournaments. i was so thrilled and happy. i was lost in the moment, oh my god, is it real? we ve had multiple indian winners in ten years. accessibility to golf. is a challenge and not just in india. today i would say a0 50% of the kids that i train are girls, it s a profession that parents are highly encouraging their children to go in. my goal is to win the olympics and a pga us open. it hasn t always been this way forfemale golfers in india. amateur status went hand in han
so we had our first season 2006, which gave us the players to get into the women s indian open in 2007. 2007 was a very important year. one of the most significant things that happened was that this tournament actually happened. the women s indian 0pen. at that time, since it was the first, i got a lot of support from the older, older generation of players. so we had the creme de la creme of women s golfers here. we had players who volunteered to come all the way from different parts of india, from pune, just to come and see this event. 0ur tournament was for 80,000 usd, the prize money, but we had some amazing young players from asia come in and play. 0urfirst winner was yani tseng. i mean, she was a last minute entry into the tournament. i remember she was a shy little girl who came to play and they were, you know, so unassuming, these young
pulled its socks up. i think the pro body got the amateur body to sort of wake up. i would say the first ten years, it was hard just getting the indian audience to wake up to a woman playing better golf than the men. i think that was the hardest. you know, that was the hardest pill to swallow, because there was no man on any toui . i was the first indian male or female. 2007, when you actually kind of started the women s indian 0pen, which was sponsored by the dlf for the first three years just tell us a bit about that. we needed to establish a ranking system for our own players.
more than what we ve been able to do so far, and i think the potential is non ending. it s non ending. and i look forward to the 25th year of the women s indian 0pen. i ll be, you know, i ll be still there, god willing. and i want to see a lot, lots of young girls. and someday, maybe my own granddaughter at the helm of golf, and my kids playing. i mean, all my golfing family. my granddaughter s just two years old, so i hope to make her into a good golfer one day.
and a lot more money must come into the game for us to grow to that level. you ve given us a beautiful, you know, kind of a view of the journey you ve had over the past 50 years. what would you say on the dream that you have, going forward? definitely, i would like to see more indian winners on the women s indian 0pen. i d like to see them win on the lpga. i would love to see these girls win up there and, you know, bring laurels for the country. it s very, very significant. and, yes, i have one more dream that i would like to see women s professional golf in the asian region, asia pacific region, also taking great shape. and one day, i would like to see an asian team, comprising of indian golfers within that asian team, playing against europe or playing against the lpga and bringing great laurels to the countries as a team. we need to showcase golf a lot