Tabuena aims to contend
Miguel Tabuena has returned from a long stint in the United States to compete in this week’s Blue Canyon Phuket Championship and says he is aiming to be in contention on Sunday despite limited playing opportunities this year.
The two-time Asian Tour winner has been camped in Washington for much of the year and has just got back to the region for a tournament that marks the resumption of the Asian Tour’s 2020-21 season.
“I have recovered from a bit of jetlag,” said the Filipino.
“Today was the first time this week I didn’t wake up before three, which was pretty good.”
He has been starved of playing opportunities because of the pandemic, but when he has competed he has seized the opportunity, including winning an event in September run by the PGA of America.
“The game is there. I’ve been seven or eight months away from this heat. I am just trying to preserve my body as well as I can although I am pretty used to it and I know what to expect,” added the 27-year-old, who has been practicing regularly with PGA Tour player Cam Davis from Australia while in the States.
“I have to hydrate a bit more this week. So, this week is more about maintaining my body.”
PHUKET-THAILAND – Miguel Tabuena of the Philippines pictured during an official practice round on Tuesday, November 23, 2021, ahead of the Asian Tour’s Blue Canyon Phuket Championship 2021 at the Blue Canyon Country Club, (Canyon Course), with a prize fund of US$ 1 Million. Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour
The second of his Asian Tour wins actually came in Thailand at the Queen’s Cup in 2018 so he is in a good space this week.
“I know the game is there, hopefully it shows up. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter, it’s good to be back playing again especially in Thailand. Hopefully I can contend, I always play to contend,” he said.
“I want to be in a situation where I can win on Sunday but if the situation is not there its just to improve every week.”
Thailand’s Jazz Janewattananond, Scott Hend from Australia, American John Catlin, Malaysian Gavin Green and teenage Korean star Joohyung Kim are just some of big names competing.
PHUKET-THAILAND – L-R – Miguel Tabuena of the Philippines pictured next to the Tiger Woods plaque on the 13th hole during an official practice round on Tuesday, November 23, 2021, ahead of the Asian Tour’s Blue Canyon Phuket Championship 2021 at the Blue Canyon Country Club, (Canyon Course), with a prize fund of US$ 1 Million. Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour
The Asian Tour Phuket Series, as its has been named, starts with the Blue Canyon Phuket Championship on Thursday, followed the week after by the Laguna Phuket Championship. The two US$1 million tournaments are part of the 2020-21 season ending events, with two final ones planned for Singapore in January.
We have put together 10 things you need to know ahead of the Asian Tour’s long-awaited resumption at the Blue Canyon Phuket Championship this week!
PHUKET-THAILAND- Blue Canyon Country Club, Phuket, Thailand. The Asian Tour Laguna Blue Canyon Championship will be staged at the Blue Canyon Country Club from November 25-28, 2021. Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour.
- The inaugural Blue Canyon Phuket Championship will mark the resumption of the Asian Tour’s 2020 season following a 20-month hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The US$1 million full-field event is part of the Asian Tour Phuket Series and will mark the first event of the two-week swing.
- A total of 144 players from 27 countries will be vying for top honours at the highly acclaimed Blue Canyon Country Club’s Canyon course, where golf legends Tiger Woods and Greg Norman have triumphed at the 1998 and 1994 Johnnie Walker Classic respectively.
- Greg Norman reclaimed his world number one status following his victory in 1994 where he beat Nick Faldo and set the course record with his final round 64.
- Tiger Woods defeated Ernie Els in a play-off to stage a great comeback in 1998. The 13th hole nicknamed “The Tiger Hole” became a signature hole of the course after Tiger drove the green from 270 yards.
- The Blue Canyon Phuket Championship will see players from Jordan and Saudi Arabia making their first ever starts on the Asian Tour.
- Reigning Order of Merit champion Jazz Janewattananond will return to Thailand for the Asian Tour Phuket Series. Place fifth on the current Order of Merit, Jazz will be vying to become the first player to successfully retain the Merit crown in back-to-back seasons on Tour.
- American John Catlin, highest-ranked player at 123rd place on the OWGR, will also feature in the inaugural event. He claimed his fourth victory at the Thailand Open in 2019 and has gone one to win three events on the European Tour since.
- Thai hotshots Sadom Kaewkanjana and Phachara Khongwatmai, who have both won multiple titles on their domestic circuit this year, will be part of the 56-man strong local challenge vying for top honours at the Blue Canyon Phuket Championship.
- 14-year-old Amateur Ratchanon Chantananuwat, who has been making waves in the local golf scene, will make his Asian Tour debut at the Blue Canyon Phuket Championship. The Thai prodigy become the youngest ever player to make the cut on the All Thailand Golf Tour in 2020. Should he make the halfway cut in Phuket, he will become the third youngest player to achieve the feat on the Asian Tour, following record-holder Jazz and second-placed Kuang Yang.
PHUKET-THAILAND- Tiger Woods longest drive on the 18th plaque at Blue Canyon Country Club, Phuket, Thailand. The Asian Tour Laguna Blue Canyon Championship will be staged at the Blue Canyon Country Club from November 25-28, 2021. Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour.
Blue Canyon Country Club will stage on of its biggest tournaments next week when the Blue Canyon Phuket Championship is played there from November 25-28, and no one is more excited than the club’s Chairman Mr. Praphant Asava-aree.
“We are proud that Blue Canyon has a long history and legacy with international competition,” said Mr Praphant.
“And we are trying to bring that back so that Blue Canyon can be the most iconic course in Thailand. So, we are extremely proud to host an Asian Tour event to help us achieve our goals.”
The US$1million tournament, to be played on the Canyon Course, marks the restart of the Asian Tour following a 19-month break because of COVID-19.
A stellar field has entered including reigning Asian Tour Order of Merit champion Jazz Janewattananond from Thailand, Australia’s Scott Hend, who has claimed 10-titles on the Asian Tour, John Catlin from the United States ‒ a three-time winner on the European Tour ‒ Malaysian number one Gavin Green, and a host of other marquee names.
The unmistakable 18th at Blue Canyon. Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour.
“Referring to the Sandbox initiative by the local government, this was key in allowing players to come here and compete without quarantine. This was a huge plus for Phuket,” added Mr Praphant.
“We have to thank the people of Phuket, the Governor and the Tourism Authority of Thailand for the bold decision they made to open up Phuket. I think in this pandemic Phuket has been doing quite well since the Sandbox started in July, and now we have opened up more since November 1. And we are confident things will get better.”
The club hosted back-to-back events on the All Thailand Golf Tour and Thailand PGA Tour in September but next week will mark the first time it has hosted an international event since the 2007 Johnnie Walker Classic – an Asian Tour, European Tour and PGA Tour of Australasia tri-sanctioned tournament won by Anton Haig from South Africa.
“The golf club has been doing well. The local events we staged were very successful and we have been happy with how things have developed,” said the Chairman.
“We closed down for one-month last year following government regulations. But we have used this whole period of downtime to improve the quality of the course and its playing surfaces. We renovated everything on the Canyon Course: fairways, tee boxes, everything. We have been working very hard on the greens to get them ready for the tournament. Four days rain, three days sun has meant it has not been easy to get the greens prepared but we have been working on it slowly and patiently.”
The Club, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last month, also hosted the Johnnie Walker Classic in 1994 when Australian great Greg Norman beat Fred Couples from the United States by a shot; and, also in 1998 the year that American Tiger Woods defeated South Africa’s Ernie Els in a memorable sudden-death play-off.
The famous penultimate hole at Blue Canyon. Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour.
The Asian Tour was also there in 1996 for the Honda City Invitational, won by Australian Steve Elkington, and in 2005 for the Thailand Open, where New Zealand’s Richard Lee took the title.
Added Mr Praphat: “We are planning more events, and we are discussing this with a lot of organisers, and of course we hope that Asian Tour will come back!”
The Asian Tour has announced that its current membership exemption categories will remain in place for 2022 as only eight events will have been played by the end of the 2020-21 season, following two pandemic-affected years.
This means no Qualifying School will be required for the new season ‒ which commences with the US$5million Saudi International powered by SoftBank Advisers in February and is expected to be the biggest season in its history.
The next Qualifying School ‒ which is normally held annually and attracts aspiring golfers from across the globe ‒ will likely be held at the end of 2022 for the 2023 season.
‘This is only fair and right,” said Cho Minn Thant, Commissioner & CEO, Asian Tour.
“Our members have had to endure an extremely difficult couple of years because of COVID-19, but they have been very patient and understanding as we have tried to work our way back. And they are now going to be rewarded with an opportunity to hit the reset button in 2022 and compete on what will be a new-look Tour.”
The Tour was forced to suspend play following the Bandar Malaysian Open last March due to the pandemic, but it is now set for resumption with the Asian Tour Phuket Series.
That starts with the Blue Canyon Phuket Championship from November 25-28 on the Canyon Course at Blue Canyon Country Club, followed by the Laguna Phuket Championship the following week at Laguna Golf Phuket.
Both events boast prizemoney of US$1million and will be followed by two events being planned in Singapore in January that will bring to a conclusion the 2020-21 season.
Players will have everything to play for when the current season resumes as they will not only be vying to improve their playing status on Tour but also trying to finish into the top-30 on the Final Order of Merit which will allow them to earn a place in the Saudi International ‒ to be played at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club from February 3-6.
The last version of the Asian Tour Qualifying School, held in Thailand in 2020, saw Zimbabwean Benjamin Follett-Smith top the class following a gruelling 90-hole battle in the Final Stage. He was among the 35 graduates who successfully secured their cards after finishing inside top 35 and ties.
Former Tour winners Malcolm Kokocinski of Sweden, Scott Strange of Australia, Natipong Srithong of Thailand and Japan’s Masanori Kobayashi as well as Filipino veteran Antonio Lascuna and Korea’s Bio Kim, who won on the KPGA Tour last week, also came through the qualifying school in 2020.
Over the years, the Asian Tour Qualifying School has witnessed the emergence of many top players in the region. Successful graduates include Thai stars Thongchai Jaidee (1999) and Kiradech Aphibarnrat (2009), Australian Scott Hend (2007), Korea’s Yikeun Chang (2016), as well as the American duo Kurt Kitayama (2018) and John Catlin (2018). PGA TOUR champions Kevin Na (2002) and Daniel Chopra (2015) are also part of the illustrious Asian Tour Qualifying School alumni.
Details on the 2023 Asian Tour Qualifying School will be provided in due course on www.asiantour.com.
Ends.
Robin Bose from thegolfinghub.com, in India, reports that the Classic Golf & Country Club – venue for the Classic Golf & Country Club International Championship and an Asian Tour Destinations member ‒ has weathered the COVID storm well.
It isn’t for nothing that the Classic Golf & Country Club was declared the safest golf course in the National Capital Region during the pandemic.
Ensconced at the foothills of the Aravalli Mountain ranges in Haryana’s Mewat district, not far from the capital New Delhi, this 27-hole Jack Nicklaus signature course was a first in South Asia when it came up, and with time has maintained the exclusive tag. It’s not just the layout that makes the 300-acre facility unique; the work ethic of the workforce is top-notch as well. This came to the fore again with the way operations were handled after the golf course reopened following the first and second phases of lockdown in the space of a year.
There were a couple of mantras that drove the campaign to prove “golf is the safest sport in these times”, and along the way stringent steps ensured that not a single staff or club member tested positive for the virus.
Keshav Kumar, DGM (Marketing and Sales) was at the forefront of this drive. “My chief concern was if I could keep my staff safe, the members would be healthy too. It was better to take extra precautions than to regret later,” he said.
The measures pressed into action did evoke resentment from some quarters initially given the uncertain times, but there was no budging by the authorities. A lot of research went into formulating the policies as well as inputs from the parent company ITC’s COVID command centre.
Rory Hie won the 2019 Classic Golf & Country Club International Championship to become the first Indonesian winner on the Asian Tour.
Atop the to-do list was to ensure the golf course was in prime condition when members returned after the first reopening last year. A small workforce was stationed at the facility for maintenance and a quarantine centre set up nearby to test personnel on return as the situation started to ease.
Soon, it was time to throw open the gates to members. Those coming in after booking their tee-time on the club’s app were subjected to temperature checks and had to produce proof (via the Indian government’s health app Aarogya Setu) that they were safe to proceed after sanitization of their cars.
All through, the endeavour was to ensure social distancing/minimum contact. Golfers were expected to park and hop on to a cart from a designated spot and head to the clubhouse. Once at the pro shop, payments were accepted by scanning the bar code. It was one golfer to a cart and tee times were advanced to ensure there was a 15-minute gap between groups. Members could carry food, but items they got from home. Water was available on course, placed on racks at vantage points for pickup. After the round, golfers had to leave the cart at a designated spot for a four-stage sanitation process. This involved four personnel in PPE suits first spraying sanitizer, followed by water and air being applied at high pressure. The final stage was about fogging the vehicle and aligning it in the parking lot. The carts took a hit, especially the electricals, a result of the cleansing, but nothing could be left to chance.
Among the list of don’ts was using the spa and locker rooms, raking of bunkers and access to caddies, who were engaged as spotters during this phase. To keep a check on exposure, golf course personnel were divided into two teams and worked on alternate days.
Given the skepticism, footfall fell but the inflow was consistent, and numbers rose with time as word spread about the measures in place to ensure a safe round of golf at a course that showed the way to cope with a crisis of unprecedented proportions.
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