Background
Player story
Alibek picked up his first golf club at age four in Tashkent, Uzbekistan — a city with a single golf course and, in his early years, almost no age-group rivals to measure himself against. He trained on that one course every single day, and coaches who worked with him remember a kid who would stand on the range for hours at a time, quietly grinding on whatever part of his game wasn't working yet. That patience became his signature: he was never in a hurry to move past a weakness, and he rarely repeated the same mistake twice.
The daily reps showed up fast in results. Playing up against older, more experienced juniors from the start, Alibek won or finished first in nearly every local tournament he entered, well before he had any international results to point to.
Over the past year and a half he moved onto the international stage. In February 2025 he won his first WAGR-caliber event, the Antalya Turkish Open — but poor weather limited the field to 27 holes, so the round wasn't eligible for official WAGR credit. He got his first official WAGR win soon after at Burabay Open in Kazakhstan, firing 69-73-74, then backed it up at Zhailjau Open with rounds of 70-66-72.