SMBC Singapore Open: Rd 3 highlights
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7PSqAAvViA[/embedyt]
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGuCnWhmi5w[/embedyt]
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyMg_1r1MSk[/embedyt]
Sentosa, Singapore, January 15: Asian Tour players joined Sentosa Golf Club this week for a spot of beekeeping, helping the club unveil its intentions for a new campaign called GAME ON, designed to make the golfing community aware of the global threat of climate change.
Local Singaporean players James Leow, Quincy Quek, Koh Deng Shan and Japanese player, Naoki Sekito, took a break from their preparations at the SMBC Singapore Open to learn more about the beekeeping practice, used by Sentosa Golf Club as one of its environmental initiatives.
The bee population is declining, down by 70% worldwide. With one third of food we eat relying on pollination by bees, Sentosa Golf Club believes that creating just a few colonies on a golf course can make a difference. With four colonies in existence currently, the club has ambitions to grow to 40 within 12 months.
The players even donned beekeeping suits and took on the iconic 4th hole on The New Tanjong, the location of Sentosa’s bee sanctuary, which is managed by local professional beekeeper, John Chong, from Bee Amazed.
Voted the ‘World’s Best Golf Club’ at the World Golf Awards, the host venue of the SMBC Singapore Open has revealed GAME ON, a model that will educate and inspire the golf industry and better equip them to introduce modern sustainability practices, reducing a golf club’s environmental impact, as well as improving the quality of facilities on offer throughout the world.
The model, which will become available in March as a free downloadable toolkit from the Sentosa Golf Club website, has been developed by one of the world’s leading agronomists, Andrew Johnston, General Manager and Director of Agronomy at Sentosa Golf Club, who has more than 30 years of experience in golf operations. Johnston is also one of the leading figures in the golf industry when it comes to sustainability, helping Sentosa to become one of the most recognised eco-friendly golf facilities in the world through the measures he has implemented.
With over 61 million golfers and 39,000 golf courses worldwide, GAME ON will help the industry to unite and work together to reduce golf’s carbon footprint, making it one of the leading industries to help make a difference on climate change.
In recent years, Sentosa Golf Club has increased exposure for its own sustainable initiatives through the development of the #KeepItGreen campaign, which launched at the 2018 SMBC Singapore Open, and has now become a way of life at the club. Under its umbrella, Sentosa continues to undertake a wide range of actions to reduce its environmental footprint, both on and off the course.
Speaking about the launch of GAME ON at the SMBC Singapore Open, Andrew Johnston, General Manager and Director of Agronomy at Sentosa Golf Club, said: “GAME ON will target the relevant issues that both golf and the world faces in its fight against climate change. Sentosa Golf Club is proud to be at the forefront of this campaign and hope to create a legacy with golf’s leading organisations and community that will have a huge bearing on our future. Being able to launch the GAME ON campaign at an event like the SMBC Singapore Open is crucial to allowing us to spread our message to a wider international audience and encourage change within the game of golf.
“As for bees, we often hear the saying that the end of bees will signal the end of the world, so we’re really proud to be able to showcase this technique through our sanctuary here at the club and look forward to seeing it grow in the months to come.”
Talking about his experience at Sentosa’s bee colonies, Quincy Quek, one of Singapore’s rising golf stars, said: “Never for a moment when I arrived here at Sentosa Golf Club did I think I would get to experience beekeeping. I didn’t even realise they had bee colonies here! It’s a really nice green initiative they have, one which is so simple for other clubs to implement and I learned how it can really make a difference. It also made me think how important it is to consider the impact golf is having on climate change and how we can do our bit to tackle the issue. It’s an important one for my generation to understand, even more so for the next generation coming through.”
Ends.
Tour Insider: SMBC Singapore Open
By Olle Nordberg, Former Asian Tour and European Tour professional
The Tournament
The US$1 million SMBC Singapore Open has a long history dating all the way back to 1961 and has seen Major champions such as Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia, Angel Cabrera and Shaun Micheel hoist the prestigious trophy.
Last year’s edition was won by Asian Tour Order of Merit champion Jazz Janewattananond, in what turned out to be the first of his four titles won last season. The win came against a world-class field that included players such as Sergio Garcia, Paul Casey, Matt Fitzpatrick and Davis Love III, and provided Jazz with a huge confidence boost for the rest of the year.
With a score of 18-under-par 266 he beat Paul Casey by two shots and set a new record for lowest winning score since the tournament came to Sentosa in the process.
The Course
The Sentosa Golf Club Serapong Course is a long and demanding championship course and will play as a par-71 at 7,397 yards from the championship tees this year.
The course will play to its full length as the fairways are soft and do not generate a lot of roll off the tee. The sizable greens however are quite firm and fast, and it will take precision shots on the approach to get close to the pins. Because of the firmness of the greens it will also be important to be in the fairway off the tee, a shot out of the rough will be much more difficult to control once it lands on the green.
The par-five 18th is a great finishing hole as it offers players a chance for an eagle if they can reach the green in two. However, with a lake guarding the left side all the way from tee to green, there is also the possibility of losing one or two strokes with a wayward shot.
The Top Contenders
Jazz Janewattananond
The winner of the SMBC Singapore Open here 12 months ago, Jazz used this event as a springboard into the top-100 in the world for the first time in his career. The 24 Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points that came with the win moved him from 111th to 74th in the rankings, and he hasn’t looked back since.
After winning the last two events of the 2019 season, and also claiming the Asian Tour Order of Merit Crown, Jazz again had a chance to win on Sunday in Hong Kong last week.
A final round of two-under-par 68 meant Jazz settled for a fourth-place finish in the event, picking up six important OWGR points which boosted his ranking to a new career high of 38th in the world.
Justin Rose
Olympic gold medal winner and former world number one Justin Rose of England will be playing in the SMBC Singapore Open for the third time. He previously finished tied-ninth and tied-14th in 2011 and 2009 respectively.
Rose posted eight top-10s across all tours in 2019, with a win at the Farmers Insurance Open, a third at the Wells Fargo Championship and a tied-third at the U.S. Open as his best results.
As a one-time Major champion (2013 U.S. Open) and a five-time European Ryder Cup team member (2008, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018) he looks likely to challenge for the title this week at Sentosa.
Henrik Stenson
The 2016 Open Champion and Olympic silver medal winner from Sweden is making his second appearance in the SMBC Singapore Open, as he previously played the event in 2011.
Stenson is coming off a win in his last event, the Hero World Challenge in early December, where he came out on top against 18 of the world’s best players.
In addition to his one Major victory, other highlights in Stenson’s career include winning the Players Championship (2009), the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship (2007) and playing on five European Ryder Cup squads (2006, 2008, 2014, 2016, 2018).
Matt Kuchar
Rounding out the Rio Olympics medal-winners is American Matt Kuchar who took home the bronze. He will be playing in Singapore for the first time.
His 2019 season was off to a great start early in the year when he won the Sony Open in Hawaii, and he would go on to post six other top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour during the year.
Kuchar is a nine-time winner on the PGA Tour, the biggest two victories came at the 2012 Players Championship and the 2013 WGC – Accenture Match Play Championship. He has also played on four American Ryder Cup teams (2010, 2012, 2014, 2016) and five Presidents Cup teams (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019).
Ryo Ishikawa
Japanese star Ryo Ishikawa won three times in Japan in 2019, including a win at the season ending Nippon Series JT Cup. Ishikawa is a 17-time winner on the Japan Golf Tour, the first one coming at an age of 15 years and eight months while he was still an amateur.
Ishikawa will be playing in the SMBC Singapore Open for the third time after participating in the last two editions of the event and will be hoping to improve on his previous best finish of tied-16th in 2018.
Gunn Charoenkul
Starting his 2019 campaign with a tied-seventh finish at last year’s SMBC Singapore Open, Gunn went on to have a fantastic season playing mainly on the Japan Golf Tour. In all OWGR ranking events he has played since the start of 2019, he has posted a staggering 20 top-10 finishes out of 32 events, or 62.5%.
After finishing tied-fourth at Japan Golf Tour’s season ending Nippon Series JT Cup, Gunn came back to the Asian Tour to finish the year with a solo-second at the BNI Indonesian Open, fifth at the Thailand Masters and started this year off much in the same way with a third-place finish last week in Hong Kong.
He is obviously in great form and this would be a good week to finally get that elusive first Asian Tour win.
Scott Vincent
Another player looking for his first Asian Tour win and a player who has been knocking on the door many times, Vincent seems due to break into the winner’s circle soon.
With 11 top-10 finishes on all tours he was a very consistent high performer last season, finishing the year seventh on the Asian Tour Order of Merit and 15th on the Japan Golf Tour Money Rankings.
Vincent also got his first professional win in 2019, taking home the trophy at the LANDIC CHALLENGE 7 on the AbemaTV Tour in Japan.
Here is what the Hong Kong Open winner Wade Ormsby had in the bag last week:
Driver: Titleist TS3 9.5* Shaft: Mitsubishi-Chemical Kuro Kage XT 60 TX
Fairway: Titleist TS3 15* Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DJ 8 X
Hb: Titleist TS3 17* Shaft: FST KBS Proto 105 S+
Ut1: Titleist U500 3 Shaft: FST KBS Proto 105 S+
Ut2: Titleist U500 4 Shaft: FST KBS Proto 105 S+
Irons: Titleist 620 MB (6-9) Shaft: TrueTemper Dynamic Gold S400
Wedge1: Titleist Vokey Design SM7 48* F-Grind
Wedge2: Titleist Vokey Design SM7 54* S-Grind
Wedge3: Titleist Vokey Design SM7 58* S-Grind
Putter: Titleist SC Tour Only Newport 2
Ball: Titleist Pro V1 x (2017) Left —
Shoe: FootJoy
Cap: Titleist
Bag: Titleist
Glove: FootJoy
Note: 5 Iron Titleist 620 CB. No 3-4 Iron
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6WxiJavSY4[/embedyt]
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktJQh7co7Ls[/embedyt]
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcWSeeAjJVI[/embedyt]
Hong Kong, January 9: Catch up on all the highlights from Round 1 of the Hong Kong Open here.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf589DaP_KU[/embedyt]
SMBC Singapore Open: Rd 3 highlights
By - Olle Norberg
[addtoany]
Catch up on all the highlights from Round 3 of the SMBC Singapore Open here.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7PSqAAvViA[/embedyt]
Catch up on all the highlights from Day 2 of the SMBC Singapore Open here.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGuCnWhmi5w[/embedyt]
Catch up on all the highlights from Day 1 of the SMBC Singapore Open here.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyMg_1r1MSk[/embedyt]
Asian Tour players joined Sentosa Golf Club this week for a spot of beekeeping, helping the club unveil its intentions for a new campaign called GAME ON, designed to make the golfing community aware of the global threat of climate change.
Sentosa, Singapore, January 15: Asian Tour players joined Sentosa Golf Club this week for a spot of beekeeping, helping the club unveil its intentions for a new campaign called GAME ON, designed to make the golfing community aware of the global threat of climate change.
Local Singaporean players James Leow, Quincy Quek, Koh Deng Shan and Japanese player, Naoki Sekito, took a break from their preparations at the SMBC Singapore Open to learn more about the beekeeping practice, used by Sentosa Golf Club as one of its environmental initiatives.
The bee population is declining, down by 70% worldwide. With one third of food we eat relying on pollination by bees, Sentosa Golf Club believes that creating just a few colonies on a golf course can make a difference. With four colonies in existence currently, the club has ambitions to grow to 40 within 12 months.
The players even donned beekeeping suits and took on the iconic 4th hole on The New Tanjong, the location of Sentosa’s bee sanctuary, which is managed by local professional beekeeper, John Chong, from Bee Amazed.
Voted the ‘World’s Best Golf Club’ at the World Golf Awards, the host venue of the SMBC Singapore Open has revealed GAME ON, a model that will educate and inspire the golf industry and better equip them to introduce modern sustainability practices, reducing a golf club’s environmental impact, as well as improving the quality of facilities on offer throughout the world.
The model, which will become available in March as a free downloadable toolkit from the Sentosa Golf Club website, has been developed by one of the world’s leading agronomists, Andrew Johnston, General Manager and Director of Agronomy at Sentosa Golf Club, who has more than 30 years of experience in golf operations. Johnston is also one of the leading figures in the golf industry when it comes to sustainability, helping Sentosa to become one of the most recognised eco-friendly golf facilities in the world through the measures he has implemented.
With over 61 million golfers and 39,000 golf courses worldwide, GAME ON will help the industry to unite and work together to reduce golf’s carbon footprint, making it one of the leading industries to help make a difference on climate change.
In recent years, Sentosa Golf Club has increased exposure for its own sustainable initiatives through the development of the #KeepItGreen campaign, which launched at the 2018 SMBC Singapore Open, and has now become a way of life at the club. Under its umbrella, Sentosa continues to undertake a wide range of actions to reduce its environmental footprint, both on and off the course.
Speaking about the launch of GAME ON at the SMBC Singapore Open, Andrew Johnston, General Manager and Director of Agronomy at Sentosa Golf Club, said: “GAME ON will target the relevant issues that both golf and the world faces in its fight against climate change. Sentosa Golf Club is proud to be at the forefront of this campaign and hope to create a legacy with golf’s leading organisations and community that will have a huge bearing on our future. Being able to launch the GAME ON campaign at an event like the SMBC Singapore Open is crucial to allowing us to spread our message to a wider international audience and encourage change within the game of golf.
“As for bees, we often hear the saying that the end of bees will signal the end of the world, so we’re really proud to be able to showcase this technique through our sanctuary here at the club and look forward to seeing it grow in the months to come.”
Talking about his experience at Sentosa’s bee colonies, Quincy Quek, one of Singapore’s rising golf stars, said: “Never for a moment when I arrived here at Sentosa Golf Club did I think I would get to experience beekeeping. I didn’t even realise they had bee colonies here! It’s a really nice green initiative they have, one which is so simple for other clubs to implement and I learned how it can really make a difference. It also made me think how important it is to consider the impact golf is having on climate change and how we can do our bit to tackle the issue. It’s an important one for my generation to understand, even more so for the next generation coming through.”
Ends.
An inside look at this week’s SMBC Singapore Open at Sentosa Golf Club’s famous Serapong Course.
Tour Insider: SMBC Singapore Open
By Olle Nordberg, Former Asian Tour and European Tour professional
The Tournament
The US$1 million SMBC Singapore Open has a long history dating all the way back to 1961 and has seen Major champions such as Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia, Angel Cabrera and Shaun Micheel hoist the prestigious trophy.
Last year’s edition was won by Asian Tour Order of Merit champion Jazz Janewattananond, in what turned out to be the first of his four titles won last season. The win came against a world-class field that included players such as Sergio Garcia, Paul Casey, Matt Fitzpatrick and Davis Love III, and provided Jazz with a huge confidence boost for the rest of the year.
With a score of 18-under-par 266 he beat Paul Casey by two shots and set a new record for lowest winning score since the tournament came to Sentosa in the process.
The Course
The Sentosa Golf Club Serapong Course is a long and demanding championship course and will play as a par-71 at 7,397 yards from the championship tees this year.
The course will play to its full length as the fairways are soft and do not generate a lot of roll off the tee. The sizable greens however are quite firm and fast, and it will take precision shots on the approach to get close to the pins. Because of the firmness of the greens it will also be important to be in the fairway off the tee, a shot out of the rough will be much more difficult to control once it lands on the green.
The par-five 18th is a great finishing hole as it offers players a chance for an eagle if they can reach the green in two. However, with a lake guarding the left side all the way from tee to green, there is also the possibility of losing one or two strokes with a wayward shot.
The Top Contenders
Jazz Janewattananond
The winner of the SMBC Singapore Open here 12 months ago, Jazz used this event as a springboard into the top-100 in the world for the first time in his career. The 24 Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points that came with the win moved him from 111th to 74th in the rankings, and he hasn’t looked back since.
After winning the last two events of the 2019 season, and also claiming the Asian Tour Order of Merit Crown, Jazz again had a chance to win on Sunday in Hong Kong last week.
A final round of two-under-par 68 meant Jazz settled for a fourth-place finish in the event, picking up six important OWGR points which boosted his ranking to a new career high of 38th in the world.
Justin Rose
Olympic gold medal winner and former world number one Justin Rose of England will be playing in the SMBC Singapore Open for the third time. He previously finished tied-ninth and tied-14th in 2011 and 2009 respectively.
Rose posted eight top-10s across all tours in 2019, with a win at the Farmers Insurance Open, a third at the Wells Fargo Championship and a tied-third at the U.S. Open as his best results.
As a one-time Major champion (2013 U.S. Open) and a five-time European Ryder Cup team member (2008, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018) he looks likely to challenge for the title this week at Sentosa.
Henrik Stenson
The 2016 Open Champion and Olympic silver medal winner from Sweden is making his second appearance in the SMBC Singapore Open, as he previously played the event in 2011.
Stenson is coming off a win in his last event, the Hero World Challenge in early December, where he came out on top against 18 of the world’s best players.
In addition to his one Major victory, other highlights in Stenson’s career include winning the Players Championship (2009), the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship (2007) and playing on five European Ryder Cup squads (2006, 2008, 2014, 2016, 2018).
Matt Kuchar
Rounding out the Rio Olympics medal-winners is American Matt Kuchar who took home the bronze. He will be playing in Singapore for the first time.
His 2019 season was off to a great start early in the year when he won the Sony Open in Hawaii, and he would go on to post six other top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour during the year.
Kuchar is a nine-time winner on the PGA Tour, the biggest two victories came at the 2012 Players Championship and the 2013 WGC – Accenture Match Play Championship. He has also played on four American Ryder Cup teams (2010, 2012, 2014, 2016) and five Presidents Cup teams (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019).
Ryo Ishikawa
Japanese star Ryo Ishikawa won three times in Japan in 2019, including a win at the season ending Nippon Series JT Cup. Ishikawa is a 17-time winner on the Japan Golf Tour, the first one coming at an age of 15 years and eight months while he was still an amateur.
Ishikawa will be playing in the SMBC Singapore Open for the third time after participating in the last two editions of the event and will be hoping to improve on his previous best finish of tied-16th in 2018.
Gunn Charoenkul
Starting his 2019 campaign with a tied-seventh finish at last year’s SMBC Singapore Open, Gunn went on to have a fantastic season playing mainly on the Japan Golf Tour. In all OWGR ranking events he has played since the start of 2019, he has posted a staggering 20 top-10 finishes out of 32 events, or 62.5%.
After finishing tied-fourth at Japan Golf Tour’s season ending Nippon Series JT Cup, Gunn came back to the Asian Tour to finish the year with a solo-second at the BNI Indonesian Open, fifth at the Thailand Masters and started this year off much in the same way with a third-place finish last week in Hong Kong.
He is obviously in great form and this would be a good week to finally get that elusive first Asian Tour win.
Scott Vincent
Another player looking for his first Asian Tour win and a player who has been knocking on the door many times, Vincent seems due to break into the winner’s circle soon.
With 11 top-10 finishes on all tours he was a very consistent high performer last season, finishing the year seventh on the Asian Tour Order of Merit and 15th on the Japan Golf Tour Money Rankings.
Vincent also got his first professional win in 2019, taking home the trophy at the LANDIC CHALLENGE 7 on the AbemaTV Tour in Japan.
Find out what the Hong Kong Open winner Wade Ormsby had in the bag last week.
Here is what the Hong Kong Open winner Wade Ormsby had in the bag last week:
Driver: Titleist TS3 9.5* Shaft: Mitsubishi-Chemical Kuro Kage XT 60 TX
Fairway: Titleist TS3 15* Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DJ 8 X
Hb: Titleist TS3 17* Shaft: FST KBS Proto 105 S+
Ut1: Titleist U500 3 Shaft: FST KBS Proto 105 S+
Ut2: Titleist U500 4 Shaft: FST KBS Proto 105 S+
Irons: Titleist 620 MB (6-9) Shaft: TrueTemper Dynamic Gold S400
Wedge1: Titleist Vokey Design SM7 48* F-Grind
Wedge2: Titleist Vokey Design SM7 54* S-Grind
Wedge3: Titleist Vokey Design SM7 58* S-Grind
Putter: Titleist SC Tour Only Newport 2
Ball: Titleist Pro V1 x (2017) Left —
Shoe: FootJoy
Cap: Titleist
Bag: Titleist
Glove: FootJoy
Note: 5 Iron Titleist 620 CB. No 3-4 Iron
Catch up on all the highlights from Round 4 of the Hong Kong Open here.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6WxiJavSY4[/embedyt]
Catch up on all the highlights from Round 3 of the Hong Kong Open here.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktJQh7co7Ls[/embedyt]
Catch up on all the highlights from Round 2 of the Hong Kong Open here.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcWSeeAjJVI[/embedyt]
Catch up on all the highlights from Round 1 of the Hong Kong Open here.
Hong Kong, January 9: Catch up on all the highlights from Round 1 of the Hong Kong Open here.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf589DaP_KU[/embedyt]
Headlines at a glance
- September 2026
- August 2026
- July 2026
- June 2026
- May 2026
- April 2026
- March 2026
- February 2026
- January 2026
- December 2025
- November 2025
- October 2025
- September 2025
- August 2025
- July 2025
- June 2025
- May 2025
- April 2025
- March 2025
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- May 2017
- March 2015
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- January 2009
Recent Comments