Malaysia settle for ninth spot in Queen Sirikit Cup

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia could only manage ninth placing in the Queen Sirikit Cup, the Asia-Pacific women’s team championship, in Thailand.

The trio of Ashley Lau Jen Wen, Liyana Durisic and Audrey Tan Wei Yen failed in their bid for a top-five finish but improve on their last year’s position by two rungs after completing the final round with a two-over 146 at the Thana City Country Club in Samut Prakan yesterday.

Ashley closed with an even-par 72 while Liyana had a 74 for the team’s three-day total of eight-over 440.

Debutant Audrey Tan signed off with a non-counting 76. Only the two best scores are being counted towards the daily team score.

Thailand agonisingly lost the chance to win their first ever title. The hosts and South Korea were tied for first place after finishing the tournament with identical 15-under 417, but the Koreans were declared winners on countback, which was determined by their third golfers’ final round scores.

South Korea’s Lee Hee-jeong’s closing round of 72 proved decisive as she pipped Thailand’s Natthakritta Vongtaveelap by just a shot to help her team bagged their 20th crown.

Thailand, however, earned a redemption of sorts when their teen prodigy Atthaya Thitikul clinched the individual title.

The 15-year-old Atthaya, last year’s Kuala Lumpur SEA Game’s double gold medallist, fired a closing 67 to win by three shots from Japan’s Yuna Nishimura.

Ashley emerged as Malaysia’s best finisher after compiling a oneover 217 total for 15th spot.

“I thought I did decent, so I’m pretty satisfied,” said Ashley.

“My long game was just bad the whole week, but thankfully my short game saved me. For the team event, I thought we didn’t do too badly considering Audrey and Liyana were playing the Sirikit Cup for the first time.

“They would’ve felt the pressure but they did really good. We combined for 21-over (total) last year, but we managed eight-over this time.”

Malaysia’s best result to date was a third placing by Lim Ai Lian, Lim Siew Ai and Irene Yeoh in the 1992 edition in Guangzhou, China.

Ai Lian won the individual competition at that time, a feat that has not been repeated since.