KUALA LUMPUR: The inaugural KIA Championship at Glenmarie Hotel & Golf Resort next week will mark the resumption of the Professional Golf of Malaysia (PGM) Tour after the Ramadan break of April. It will also feature a field that is as strong as any have been in recent times and gives promise to great excitement. Almost all of the country’s leading men and women players will take to the Garden Course from Tuesday through Thursday.
Shahriffuddin Ariffin, together with Asian Tour regulars Ben Leong and Nicholas Fung, and the much-travelled Danny Chia, will start as tournament favourites, while in the women’s category Aretha Pan, who will be seeking a second straight PGM Tour title, South-East Asian (SEA) Games silver medalist Mirabel Ting and Ainil Johani Bakar should also in the mix of things.
Shahriffuddin comes into the tournament, which carries RM120,000 prize money for the men and RM20,000 for women, with good form, despite missing cut at the Blue Canyon Open in Thailand earlier this week.
The 23-year-old won the PGM Maybank Championship in March, PGM Tour’s second event of the season, and finished third in the season-opener, the Tun Sarji Ahmad Trophy in February.
Shahriffuddin also narrowly missed out at the Laguna Phuket Cup in Phuket where he finished runner-up just on two weeks ago. A top-15 finish in the Laguna Phuket Challenge at the beginning of the month, also helped Shahriffuddin climb to fifth on the Asian Development Tout (ADT) Tour’s Order of Merit.
But Shahriffuddin is unlikely to have all his way, not with so many leading players waiting in the wings. Indeed, there is a long list of candidates, all capable of winning at Glenmarie, including Khor Kheng Hwai and Daeng Abdul Rahman, who both finished in the top-10 of the first two PGM Tour tournaments this year.
A huge mix of youth and experience, among them several multiple Tour winners, will add spice to the KIA Championship, which will also have Malaysia’s men’s SEA Games team in action on the Garden Course – Ervin Chang, Marcus Lim, K. Rhaasrikanesh and Nateeshvar Ganesh.
In the women’s section, Mirabel Ting, who won the ladies’ title at the PGM Maybank Championship and was part of the SEA Games team that collected a silver medal in Vietnam, is expected to give Aretha, and the others, another run for their money. Also in the equation at Glenmarie will be Dianne Luke, Michelle Koh and Nur Durriyah Damian.
Commenting on the three-day 54-hole KIA Championship that will come to a close on Thursday, Bermaz Auto Berhad Executive Chairman Datuk Sri Yeoh Choon San said as sponsors they were delighted to partner the PGM Tour and added that they were looking forward to the tournament with much enthusiasm.
“What excites us most here is not only that this is the inaugural tournament of the KIA Championship, but we also have a strong field in both the men’s and women’s categories at Glenmarie next week,” he said.
“This is really a welcome development for the PGM Tour and ourselves, and it has been topped off excellently by members of Malaysia’s SEA Games team, who won medals in Vietnam, also in the line-up. We could not have asked for anything better,” added Datuk Sri Yeoh Choon San.
