Twelve professional players have signed up so far for the Bermuda Open later this month, with the only three Bermudian professionals being overseas based players Michael Sims, Nick Jones and Terrance Daniels.

Another Bermudian, defending champion Eric West, who won a maiden Bermuda Open title last year by a comfortable nine strokes, has not yet signed up ahead of next Monday’s deadline.

West has been playing on the European Challenge Tour.

Kim Swan, a veteran professional, recently slammed the $500 entry fee for professionals, believing it was far too high in the current economic climate. Gary Vennings, the Bermuda Golf Association administrator, is still optimistic that the interest from local professionals will increase over the next few days.

“The response from the overseas pros has been quite good but we haven’t had a lot of locals yet which is not unusual as they tend to leave it closer to the time,” Venning said. “A lot of entries come in late so I’m not too concerned, we’ll probably extend the deadline anyway.

“I understand Javon Roberts [amateur champion] is going to be playing although I haven’t had his entry yet.”

The overseas professionals are coming from the UK, Sweden, Canada, US and Australia, taking in the Open ahead of the World Par 3 the following week at Turtle Hill.

“That was the whole idea of putting the Open a week before the Par 3, to enable them to have a week of golf,” Venning said.

“You could easily get a surge of eight or nine players coming in at the last minute. With the tournament being midweek it is a bit of a challenge, but we’re encouraged by the entries that are starting to come in. The [Bermudian] guys living overseas who are coming back have the added expense of travel.”