At the end of the tournament, the Otago selectors will announce the eight players who will represent Otago in the South Island interprovincial in November.
This will be the last trial event before naming the five players to compete in the national interprovincial event on December 2-6.
The race will be on to impress but qualifying will not be easy today, with 30 players vying for the 16 championship berths.
After this will be four rounds of matchplay with two finalists meeting on Monday afternoon to decide this year's champion.
Sean Roach (Arrowtown), Brent McEwan (St Clair), Cameron Beel (Otago), Peter Buckley (Queenstown) and Andrew Hobbs (St Clair) are currently the top quintet.
Hobbs will no doubt move up the order after captaining the Otago team and winning all four matches in Alexandra.
Challenges will come from Mark Brooks (Queenstown), Mitch Bosley (Wanaka), Michael Minty (St Clair), Philip Bungard (Chisholm Park) and Russell Newman (Taieri).
Several of the Otago contingent are likely to miss the cut as there is a plethora of talent from Aorangi and Southland in the senior field.
The lowest three handicaps belong to young Southlanders Cody Harper (Invercargill), Mathew Tautari (Queens Park) and Gore schoolboy Vaughan McCall who boast the best three negative handicap indices.
Add to this experienced campaigners like Robbie Bell (Ashburton), Simon Gallie (Otago) and Nigel Wilson (St Clair), not to mention several young players who are showing good form, and qualifying will be tough.
As well as the senior event, there will be senior B, intermediate and junior championships while masters (over-40) golfers have a separate competition with one round each day.
