Korea’s Jeunghun Wang was the first to make the most of the Moutai Singapore Open’s return today – shooting an eight-under-par 64 for the clubhouse lead mid-way through the opening day.

The tournament was last played in 2022 while it is the first time it has been held at Singapore Island Country Club (SICC) in a quarter of a century. Wang celebrated the occasion by shooting nine birdies and dropping just one shot.

He leads by a stroke from Thailand’s Gunn Charoenkul and Kieran Vincent from Zimbabwe, all in with 65s – here on the New Course at SICC.

Germany’s Dominic Foos, winner of the SJM Macao Open three weeks ago, and American Micah Shin are next best placed followings 66s.

Wang burst onto the scene just under a decade ago winning three times on the European Tour. One of those was joint-sanctioned with the Asian Tour: the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open in 2016.

Gunn Charoenkul.

Not long after that he had to do 18 months of national service in Korea, and he has been gradually working his way back since.

“I haven’t won a tournament in almost eight years, so I really want to get a win again,” said the 30-year-old.

“My irons were really good today — I hit the ball solid all day. My putting was hot too, and I didn’t really miss any shots. Overall, I’m very happy with how I played.”

Since his return to the game he has finished second twice and recorded two-other top five finishes on the Asian Tour.

Gunn is working hard to keep his card for next year, sitting in 56^th place on the Asian Tour Order of Merit with four events remaining including this week.

He has been one the Tour’s most consistent performers over the past four years but has failed to find his rhythm this season.

“It’s not been a very smooth season,” he said.

“Been a bit of a struggle on the second half of the season with my health as well, and, you know, with bit of the equipment. So, with those two issues, you know, I’m borderline at the moment.

“So hopefully, I really want the win this week, you know. So, try to have theconfidence but not expect anything. So yeah, hopefully it all turns out.”

Kieran Vincent.

He was unwell at the Shinhan Donghae Open in Korea in September and lost 20 pounds. He never established what caused it. He has slowly returned to full fitness while a change in driver this week appears to be helping.

“Made some big changes this week, I have changed my driver. Hopefully that’s the right decision so far. My misses with the old driver were way too big,” he explained.

“I also putted it phenomenal today. Put myself in great positions. So, everything was pretty smooth today. I was pretty lucky.”

Vincent, brother of The International Series Rankings leader Scott Vincent, finished joint third in the Jakarta International Championship last month for his best performance of the season and still looks to be in good form.

It helped being paired in the same group as Foos and Shin.

Said Vincent: “I was trying to play catch up to my playing partners. They got off to a flyer as well. And I’m like, I can’t miss that on this party. And so, yeah, it was just kind of, we’re feeding off some good energy out there, both Dominic and Micah.

James Leow.

“And so between the three of us, you know, we kind of saw a couple of putts go in. And, you know, from there, it was just kind of feeding off each other. And I thought, yeah, we did a really good job between three of us.”

James Leow posted a fine 68 and is the leading Singaporean, the same as Miguel Tabuena from the Philippines, who won the International Series Philippines recently.

Picture by Graham Uden/Asian Tour.