Jazz Janewaattananond – the defending champion – photo Asian Tour
The joint sanctioning between the Asian and Japan Tours will mean that this week’s SMBC Singapore Open contains fifteen Australians and one New Zealander in the event to be played at the Sentosa Golf Club’s Serapong Course.
Six of those players are in the field courtesy of their standing on the Japan Golf Tour while for the remainder they get their chance for a range of reasons.
Marcus Fraser, David Micheluzzi and David Gleeson have received invitations to the event, Aaron Pike is in the field courtesy of his standing on the Australasian Tour money list, while Andrew Dodt and Daniel Nisbet are playing as a tournament winners on the Asian Tour.
Terry Pilkadaris, Travis Smyth and Jake Higginbottom and Josh Younger are Asian Tour members, while Adam Bland, Matthew Griffin, Dylan Perry, Won Joon Lee, David Bransdon and New Zealander Michael Hendry are regulars on the Japan Tour.
In addition to the US1 million purse, the opportunity exists for the leading four players finishing inside the top twelve this week and not otherwise exempt for this year’s Open Championship to start thinking about Royal St George’s.
NSW Open Champion, Josh Younger is the highest ranked Aussie in the field – photo Golf NSW
The event is the second event of the year on the Asian Tour following last week’s Hong Kong Open and the first for the Japan Tour.
Despite the presence of higher world ranked ranked players, Justin Rose, Matt Kuchar and Henrik Stenson, the man on whom most eyes will be focused this week is the brilliant Thai golfer, Jazz Janewattananond, who is the defending champion and, by some margin, the leading player on the 2019 Asian Tour Order of Merit.
The 24-year old is generally considered as Asia’s next big thing and it will be a surprise if he is not amongst the contenders come Sunday, especially given he won his last two events of 2019 and finished 4th at last week’s Hong Kong Open.
