Korea’s elite golfers gather for Shinhan Donghae Open
Photo credit: KPGA
The 36th edition of the Shinhan Donghae Open will feature the cream of Korean golf when it gets underway at the highly rated Bear’s Best Cheongna Golf Club in Incheon for the fifth consecutive year starting Thursday.
Major champion Y.E. Yang, K.T. Kim, Sanghyun Park, Jeunghun Wang, Hosung Choi and former Asian Tour Order of Merit champion Seungyul Noh will spearhead the 138-man field in the event, which is offering an increased prize purse of KRW1.4b (approximately US$1.2m) this week.
The Shinhan Donghae Open, which has been held annually in the Land of Morning Calm since 1981, will have to be played behind closed doors for the first time in history this year due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Sanghyun Park of Korea
“I will miss the cheers of the gallery,” said Park, who won the event two years ago.
“But it’s great we are playing and it will be a very competitive week, as there are so many young Korean stars now.”
“We will just have to adapt to having no galleries,” added Taehee Lee, who successfully defended his Maekyung Open on home soil last month.
The Korean PGA Tour has staged six events since July – when strict lockdown measures, due to the coronavirus pandemic, were lifted.
“This week is mainly for Koreans because of Covid-19 so we will most likely see a domestic winner and it is a good opportunity for me to produce a good performance,” said Noh.
There is not a lot Kim, a 14-time winner in Japan, has not achieved in the game, but he has yet to win the Shinhan Donghae Open.
K.T. Kim of Korea
He said: “Although we are missing a lot of talented foreign players, I think it will be a very competitive competition. I haven’t done well here so far but I’ll try to break the jinx.”
South African Jbe Kruger triumphed last year to add his name to the illustrious list of names inscribed on the trophy, which includes: K.J. Choi (2007 and 2008), Charlie Wi (2001), Jeev Milkha Singh (1994) and Paul Casey (2011).
The Shinhan Donghae Open was jointly sanctioned by the Asian Tour and the KPGA in 2016 before becoming the first event in Korea to be tri-sanctioned by the Asian Tour, KPGA and Japan Golf Tour Organisation (JGTO) in 2019.
Like previous years, the storied event will be broadcasted to the Asian Tour’s international audience via the Asian Tour Media platform.
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American John Catlin claimed his maiden European Tour title at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters after overcoming two-time Major Champion Martin Kaymer in a thrilling battle for a one-stroke victory at the famous Real Club Valderrama.
Catlin, a four-time Asian Tour winner, showed nerves of steel as he fended off the challenge of his playing partner, the former World Number One from Germany, down the stretch and a four-over-75 was enough for a two-over-286 winning total.
SOTOGRANDE, SPAIN – SEPTEMBER 06: John Catlin of The United States reacts after putting on the 18th green during day four of the Estrella Damm N. A. Andalucia Masters golf tournament at Real Club Valderrama on September 06, 2020 in Sotogrande, Spain. (Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images)
Catlin had started the day two shots clear at the top but bogeys at the fifth, 10th, 12th and 14th meant Kaymer – who birdied at the second, fourth and 12th – pulled level to set up a dramatic finale at the Sotogrande venue.
Kaymer missed a golden opportunity to take the lead at the 17th, missing a six-foot birdie putt, and Catlin kept his composure with a delightful lag putt at the final hole to two feet. Kaymer had to hole his chip from the edge of the green to keep his chances alive and he almost did just that, but his bogey meant Catlin would seal the wire-to-wire victory with a tap-in par.
“I think it’s still setting in, the nerves were going nuts the whole of the final round. It’s a very difficult golf course, the greens are firm and fast and the wind was no easier than it has been the previous three days.
“I don’t think it’s quite sunk in but that was my goal at the start of 2019, is to win on the European Tour so to have actually accomplished that is pretty hard to put into words right now,” said the 29-year-old Catlin.
SOTOGRANDE, SPAIN – SEPTEMBER 06: John Catlin of The United States tees off on the 8th hole during day four of the Estrella Damm N. A. Andalucia Masters golf tournament at Real Club Valderrama on September 06, 2020 in Sotogrande, Spain. (Photo by Luke Walker/Getty Images)
“It’s very difficult, the hardest part was hitting the fairways. The wind is cross-breeze on most of them, down right to left or down from left to right, into left to right so if you get any kind of wrong spin going you can end up in the rough and the greens are just getting firmer and firmer.
“So fairways are a must, and I managed to make the fairway on 18 and that might have been the difference,” he added.
Catlin also said that his past experience on the Asian Tour stood him in good stead in the closing stages.
After coming through the Asian Tour Qualifying School in 2015, he claimed an Asian Development Tour title each in 2016 and 2017 and went on to win three times on the Asian Tour in 2018. His fourth Asian Tour victory came at the Thailand Open last November.
“My past experience was very helpful in that regard, I knew I had done it before.
“Even when things were not quite going my way in the early part of that back nine, I knew if I just stayed patient and kept going, I would give myself a chance.”
South African Justin Harding battled to a second straight 71 to settle two shots back in a share of third place while Japan’s Masahiro Kawamura finished in tied-eighth place on 291. American Johannes Veerman came in a further shot back and ensured a top-10 finish after closing with a 74.
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If you need a prominent figure in Asian golf – and a multiple Tour winner with an exemplary record in the amateur game – to testify about the mercurial nature of the game of golf, then look no further than Shiv Kapur.
The popular Indian star produced three brilliant victories in 2017 but only after his most traumatic season since turning professional in 2004.
Kapur’s tale is one of a 360-degree turn-around in fortunes.
Fortunately, and one of the reasons why he is such a fitting spokesperson and case study on the matter of golf’s unevenness, Kapur is able to discuss it eloquently and with insight.
In 2016, the Indian was in big trouble.
“When I lost my card on the European Tour in 2016, it was one thing after the other,” he says.
“I was injured, I had a liver surgery that year, which took me a few months to recover from, and I lost my status in Europe. Right after that I had the birth of my daughter, followed that up a few weeks later with dengue fever – so I had a lot of good things off the course but from my health perspective I went through this really turbulent period of eight to nine months, almost a year, where my body just wasn’t where it needed to be – going through surgery and then dengue fever. When I came back I lost a lot of speed in my swing, I lost a lot of distance off the tee – it was a rebuilding process.”
The liver surgery was the result of a liver abscess which went undiagnosed for a while before it flared up and started to affect other organs. He was in a hotel in Bulgaria went it first surfaced and he woke up with a fever of 105 degrees F. The doctors there could not figure out what it was so he got on a plane, flew home, and went straight into hospital. He had to have surgery and was in hospital for almost two weeks, followed by bed rest for a month after that.
“It was not fun at all,” he says.
And it was not long after that that he got a bout of dengue fever, because his body was so weak.
So while thrilled by the birth of his first child, Veda, he was in the middle of the most difficult period of his career.
And although he made a full recovery from the illnesses, the ensuing season did not start well and there were question marks about his future.
He says: “For the first three months of 2017 I was almost at the stage where I felt I wasn’t ready to compete. I felt like I didn’t know what to do. I just needed to take time off to get everything in shape.”
So what transpired next, and indeed why it happened, is both truly magnificent and mystical.
In April he claimed the Yeangder Heritage tournament in Chinese Taipei; the following month he finished second in the Thailand Open; in November he triumphed in the Panasonic Open India – at Delhi Golf Club, his home club; and in December his was victorious in Thailand at the Royal Cup.
“It is funny how this game works, when you least expect things and you drop your expectations,” says Kapur.
“Finally that win came in Chinese Taipei. It had been four years since my last victory and to finally get that win gave me the belief back and reignited a fire in me. In spite of all that I had been through I was in a very good place off the course, married, had a little daughter and I guess having a daughter was that added inspiration as you are playing for something more than yourself. And it worked.
“Form is an amazing thing, I don’t think I did anything differently. I was putting a lot of effort in with my coach at the time because when I came back, I felt like I had taken a huge step back physically. And the confidence of that win carried over into the rest of the season.”
And from being out in the golfing wilderness, he suddenly felt that every time he put himself in contention he was really comfortable and all the nerves that were there in the past, and meant he couldn’t close out, went away.
“I wouldn’t say there was a perfect formula as such but it is just one of those seasons when things clicked. If you look back at pictures of me then and now, I was much heavier as I was suffering through all of these things in my body. I was able to overcome that.”
While he was unable to match that season in 2018 and 2019 he has been a regular contender and been close to victory several times – including losing in a sudden-death play-off at last year’s Thailand Open.
“Post 2017, I got into that thing where you have won three times so expectations go up and you try and replicate a season which realistically, a three win season, is not the bar, it is something that comes along every now and then, it is an exceptional season,” says Kapur.
Importantly, the new found form and success in Asia brought Kapur a very clear direction on where he wants to play.
He says: “I didn’t get a medical exemption from the European Tour which proved a blessing as it made me play in Asia and made me realize how much I love playing on the Asian Tour.”
Now based in Dubai, Kapur is one of the players on the Asian Tour’s Board of Directors.
Earlier this year, he flew to New Delhi to compete in the Hero Indian Open in March only to see the event cancelled because of COVID-19.
“I never thought I would spend the last half five months in India. India had one of the harshest and strictest lockdowns when you weren’t even allowed to step outside your house,” he says.
“Initially I had gone up to the hills, on a little vacation with the family. And to me the first couple of months were amazing because it was something I had always craved for. I have a young daughter so to be able to spend that time with her and play dad and do the things that you miss most on Tour, that was a novelty for me. I never really got that time to spend with her growing up. This was fantastic but I have to be honest after a couple of months into it you start to get a bit edgy,” adds Kapur.
“In our lives you are not used to being in one place for so long. If felt like an off season, kind of a blessing in disguise, hitting the reset button, time to reassess some goals, see where you stand, looking at what the path forward is.”
Two weeks ago he was finally able to play in a tournament and competed in the ISPS Handa Wales Open. He failed to make it through to the weekend but cherished the opportunity to compete.
“My first week out after six months was in 70km an hour winds, we had two or three wind delays, five degree weather, playing in rain and wind, it was a baptism of fire,” he says
He is hoping to play in the European Tour event in Portugal in two weeks and as he says: “We have spoken internally at the Asian Tour and we are hoping to start in the not too distant future.”
At the age of 38 he feels he has about another five years of playing on Tour left in him and is aiming to qualify for next year’s Olympics so that he can add an Olympic medal to the gold medal he won in the Asian Games in Korea in 2002.
He wants to play in more Majors and would dearly love to win the Asian Tour Order of Merit title, having come close several times.
“To be Asian number one is a goal I want to accomplish before I hang up my boots,” he says.
It is all highly possible considering what happened during a miraculous 2017.
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Angelo Que’s golf game is ready to roll, thanks to his “tennis” injury being fixed – although unfortunately, at the moment, playing time is limited.
Held up at home in Manila since March because of coronavirus pandemic restrictions, he has endured two lengthy stints of lockdown with no golf; three months from March onwards, and then last month as well.
As with all of the Asian Tour’s top golfers it has been a test of character but there has been a silver lining.
“I have actually enjoyed the rest because before the lockdown and before the end of last year, I had tennis elbow,” says Que.
“It sort of affected the way I played, and at that time I was unable to take the time needed to rest, because there were tournaments to be played and during the Christmas break, we only had two weeks off before we started playing again.
“So the rest has been a big help for my elbow but it is also frustrating because now that I don’t feel pain I want to play, but there are no tournaments.”
Angelo Que at the season-opening Hong Kong Open held at the Fanling Golf Club in Hong Kong from January 9-12, 2020. Picture by Paul Lakatos / Asian Tour.
Que’s last tournament was the Bandar Malaysia Open in March, where he tied for 31st despite the issue with his elbow.
“Pretty much everyday things caused it [the tennis elbow]. Carrying suit cases, playing a lot of golf. When I had it checked, there was no tear or big injury, it was just normal tennis elbow.
“But tennis elbow doesn’t heal as much as other injuries. It takes months and even if you work on it, it still takes months. You have to strengthen it, I have done a lot of research on it. I was surprised, I thought when it heals it’s done but no! It actually takes months to heal, sometimes years. It doesn’t go away sometimes. So the break was actually a good thing for my elbow.”
He says the local Tour is trying to put together a series of events starting in October. They are aiming to stage six events in a row with players, men and women, being kept in a bubble throughout.
As well as that he is hoping he will be able to play in Japan later in the year if the Japan Golf Tour Organization (JGTO) are able to host three or four events in a row, so he could justify the quarantine protocols.
“After the Bandar Malaysia Open in March, the next round that I played was in June. But I am sort of used to not playing that much, especially when I am home for a month, but three months is a bit long. I felt a bit stiff, everything was a bit rusty when I started playing again.
“And then we sort of had another lockdown this month and I have not played since June actually, that’s another two months,” said Que, who has scheduled a practice round this week.
“I am trying to keep busy,” says the 41-year-old.
“Helping the kids with school work, doing groceries and trying to get some rounds in at the same time. The situation back then wasn’t as bad. It was hard to get used to it in the beginning, being in lockdown, not being able to go out, and we couldn’t play golf.
“Right now it’s got better, you can go out and play golf. You can go out and do some groceries and the lines are not so long. Except the new protocol is you have to wear masks, you have to wear face shields.”
His most recent victory was a breakthrough win in Japan two years ago at the TOP Cup Tokai Classic – where Korean Y.E. Yang finished runner-up.
“Winning in Japan, and at my age, is surreal. It is hard to keep up with the young ones right now. You look at the age of the guys dominating on the Tour now, they are in the mid-20s to early 30s, so to keep up with those guys, it is a big deal for me.
“I have been playing in Asia for 18 years, and I have played Japan for six years, so age is a big factor right now. So that win in Japan was very big, especially going against Y.E. Yang. As everybody knows, I love to eat, and the food is great there, and that is why I gained a little bit of weight. I just love the food. If I don’t play well at least I have something to look forward to.”
The Asian Tour, and the JGTO, await to see what a free-swinging and injury-free Que can do when tournaments are up and running once more.
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August 24: Korea’s Taehee Lee became the first player to successfully defend his title in the 39-year history of the GS Caltex Maekyung Open when he closed with a second straight three-under-par 67 to win by one shot at the Elysian Gangchon Country Club on Sunday.
Lee, who claimed his Asian Tour breakthrough at the Maekyung Open last May, returned to a new venue for his title defence and successfully retained the trophy with a winning total of 11-under-par 199 in the 54-hole event for his fourth title on his domestic Tour.
The 36-year-old got off to a fast start with three straight birdies in his opening four holes but slipped back with four bogeys against two birdies in his next 10 holes. He bounced back with back-to-back birdies on 15 and 16 and eventually won after leader Minkyu Cho stumbled with a bogey-bogey finish.
Lee, who finished in a commendable third place on the 2019 Asian Tour Order of Merit, takes home a prize purse of US$134,442 and receives four Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points following his victory to break into the world’s top-500.
Over at the ISPS HANDA Wales Open on the European Tour, Malaysia’s Gavin Green continued his fine form to notch a top-10 finish at The Celtic Manor Resort located in the City of Newport, Wales.
Green, the 2017 Asian Tour Order of Merit champion, closed with a two-under-par 69 and a three-under-par 281 total to finish five back of winner Romain Langasque of France, marking his second top-10 finish on the European Tour this season.
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August 13: Panuphol Pittayarat would have been forgiven if he had chosen to celebrate his joint fifth-place finish in the Singha-Sat Prachinburi Championship on the Thailand PGA Tour last Sunday in a slightly exaggerated fashion.
Put mildly, it has been a testing year for the 27-year-old and not for all the obvious reasons relating to the menace that is coronavirus.
“I was playing really well and then I got sick in Hong Kong. I got a fever,” said Panuphol, referring to the Hong Kong Open in January – where he was forced to retire after three rounds.
HONG KONG- The Hong Kong Open at the Fanling Golf Club, Fanling, Hong Kong, the Asian Tour USD$ 1 million season opener event, January 9-12, 2020. Picture by Paul Lakatos / Asian Tour.
The young man, affectionately known as “Coconut”, is quick to point out it was unrelated to Covid-19.
But the deadly virus, that has sent the world into turmoil, would soon impact him.
“I was home in Bangkok when lockdown first hit,” said Panuphol, speaking from this week’s Singha Pattaya Open.
Like so many of his peers on Tour, he treated the enforced layoff positively.
He adds: “It gave me time to take some time off. I took it in a good way. I spent my time resting basically and doing nothing. I had time to spend with my girlfriend, my family, and with my dog. It gave us some time to rethink, to boost my body.”
To help fill the hours in the day, he rather industriously decided to make and sell ice cream along with his girlfriend and sister.
“It was like a mango yoghurt ice cream. We sold it so that we had something to do, just to friends and family and some of the players tried it. We did pretty well and sold 400 or 500 cups. Any money we made I mostly gave it to my girlfriend and sister. I was really just the wing man,” he says.
It was a period of special downtime time for a golfer who has been a professional since 2009 – he made the transition to the play-for-pay game when he was just 16 years old.
However, when Thailand opened up again after over three months and local tournaments began to reappear on the schedule, Panuphol experienced something unexpected for the first time in his career.
He says: “I basically injured myself by resting and not playing golf during lockdown. My shoulder and back started to hurt badly. I think I did it by doing nothing. I was away from the gym and not doing fitness, not playing golf. I saw a physio, a doctor and chiropractor, I saw everybody, about four people. I tried to get back and recover quickly. I spent a lot of time on recovery. It took me a month to get back on track after lockdown.”
In his first tournament back, the Thongchai Jaidee Foundation in July on the All Thailand Golf Tour, he missed the cut.
“I shot five over on the first day and then missed the cut. I told myself to get it together, so I started to go to the gym and practice. My game then started to get better and better. I got back on track, made the cut in the second and third events and finished in a tie for fifth last week.”
It is a bonus for everyone that Panuphol is up and running again.
Over recent seasons he broke through on the Asian Tour with two magnificent and hugely popular victories: first in the 2017 Indonesian Open and then the Thailand Open in 2018 – the latter win coming on his home course at Thai Country Club.
“I have been on Tour for eight or nine years, and it took me six years before I won. It told me I can win. Those wins made me realize I needed to practice even harder, spend more time on the practice area, on the putting green, fixing my faults, and making myself a better person. Those were the key factors. And since those wins I know I have to start working towards what I do best and do what I have to do,” says the Thai star.
He has also tried his hand on the Japan Golf Tour Organization over the past two years and despite struggling there he is determined to return there when conditions permit.
“The problem in Japan was my tee shot. I wasn’t comfortable. Golf courses in Japan are very narrow and tree-lined. I couldn’t adjust to looking at a straight fairway. Most courses in Asia have a dogleg either, left or right. Hitting bad tee shots effected my game and score. I felt like I was hitting out of bounds every day,” he says.
CHACHOENGSAO -THAILAND – Panuphol Pittayarat of Thailand, defending champion, pictured on Tuesday November 5, 2019 during the Thailand Open Pro-am event at the Thai Country Club, Chachoengsao, Thailand. The USD$ 300.000 event is an Asian Tour event, November 7-10, 2019. Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour.
For now though, and through to the rest of the year, he is focused on playing tournaments on home soil.
“I turned pro when I was 16, but first started playing in pro events when I was 14. It was definitely difficult as a junior coming out and playing with the best in the country. I think I took the right decision, because I learned so much. I have no regrets,” he says.
“I would like to play better, play on a bigger stage, in Japan, in Europe, if possible the PGA Tour. My goal is playing golf at the top level, my every day goal is to make a living out of it, so if I am not then I am not achieving my main goal.”
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August 11: The sporting fire that lit so brightly when Arjun Atwal turned professional some 25 years ago is showing no signs of flickering as the Indian legend prepares to write a new chapter in his illustrious golf life.
Atwal has deservedly earned legendary stature in India and Asia due to his trailblazing success on golf’s finest fairways, which includes becoming the first Indian to play and subsequently triumph on the game’s biggest stage, the PGA TOUR.
He is also a man of many firsts. Atwal was the first from the sub-continent to win a European Tour event (2002), the foremost golfer to earn over US$1 million in career earnings on the Asian Tour (2003) and the first to taste victory on the Korn Ferry Tour (2008).
For all his easy-going and laidback demeanour, the Indian, now 47 years young, is still as ambitious as he was at 22 when he joined the play-for-pay ranks. While he believes he can still compete at the highest level – he briefly held the co-lead during the third round of the recent Rocket Mortgage Classic – he has set more lofty goals by stating his intention to win on PGA TOUR Champions when he becomes eligible for the over-50 circuit.
“By the time, I’m 50 I’m ready to play (PGA TOUR) Champions. I want to win on this Tour as well. I still have the desire to win as long my body can still perform. If those things are there, then I will play. As of right now, I’m feeling great,” said Atwal, who resides in Windermere, Florida with his family.
The former Asian No. 1 says he has never felt this good in a long time. Throughout a career which saw him garner eight Asian Tour wins including three European Tour co-sanctioned titles and the region’s Order of Merit crown, he endured some difficult times with debilitating back and shoulder injuries. In 231 PGA TOUR events, Atwal enjoyed one win, 11 top-10s and 29 top-25s which his overall report card could have indicated better stats if not for those setbacks.
Hence at the turn of a new decade, Atwal made a pledge to get fitter, trimmer and stronger. When he showed up in Detroit last month, he had shed 15 pounds to bring his weight back to 185 pounds which was the number he tipped on the scales in his PGA TOUR debut in 2004. With his wife Sona’s help, he now consumes only healthy food, stopped the casual alcohol intake, works out at the gym four times a week and diligently practices yoga to ensure he remains supple and agile.
“This year, I made a commitment to get fitter. I wanted to see how fit I could be and also to get rid of the aches and pains. I’ve been working out and I feel good … the legs feel stronger and I’ve added swing speed. I’m hitting the ball longer than in the last five to six years. I don’t remember how long ago I’ve felt like this,” said Atwal, who pounded a drive of 342 yards at the Rocket Mortgage for his longest one to date in 2020.
GREENSBORO, NC – AUGUST 22: Arjun Atwal holds the championship trophy after winning the Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club on August 22, 2010 in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images)
This week will mark exactly 10 years when Atwal wrote another slice of Asian golf history by winning the Wyndham Championship. As a Monday qualifier, he led from start to finish to become India’s first winner on the PGA TOUR, fulfilling his American dream which began when he attended high school in New York.
He is once again in this week’s elite field at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, with T53 finishes in his last two starts at the 3M Open and Barracuda Championship. After making the cut in his last start, the Indian star cheekily tweeted: “Three cuts in a row…not bad for a 47 year old…let’s see if the body holds up on the weekend!”
Atwal though is not the sort of guy who would dwell in past successes, preferring to look ahead towards new challenges. “I don’t think about it (the win),” he said. “It’s so long ago. Once it’s over, it’s over. I’m just looking forward to competing, and I got excited to practice again with a purpose when I got into the Rocket Mortgage Classic (where he finished tied 45th).”
“There’s definitely pride in what I’ve done in my career. Playing on the Asian Tour taught me a lot and it’s a matter of pride to be first Indian to win on the PGA TOUR, Korn Ferry Tour, European Tour … that’s not bad. I’ve always dreamt about playing here and this is the dream. Hopefully I can become the first Indian to win on Champions as well. There may be generations doing much more after me but they can’t take away being the first. It’s pretty cool coming from a country of 1.3 billion people.”
Atwal’s two sons, 16-year-old Krishen and Shiva, 12, may not quite follow in his golf footsteps despite being introduced to the game when they were young. At 6’5” and 6’1” in height, respectively, and still growing, both seem intent on playing basketball and will have their dad’s full encouragement should they harbour dreams of playing in the NBA.
“The older boy has decided to play only basketball while the younger one is playing both sports but because he’s a big boy, basketball comes easier. I’m not going to push them and my advice is to have discipline and work ethics. They’ve seen their dad work hard and I think they get it. When I’m home, I’ve got the discipline and the ethics. I think they will learn by example,” Atwal said proudly.
“That’s my legacy to my kids.”
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