Preparations well in hand
Much anticipation ahead of the Tour’s start this week
PEPARATIONS for the start of the Professional Golf of Malaysia (PGM) Tour season are well in hand and at this stage, everything points to an explosive tee-off amid great expectations of a compact and competitive circuit.
The new season, which was in part delayed by the Covid-19 outbreak, was launched two-anda-half weeks ago by PGM Tour chairman Tun Ahmad Sarji Abdul Hamid, will feature four events on the main Tour that will run concurrently with the ladies circuit and two Qualifying School tournaments.
The first event will be a Q-School showdown at Impian Golf & Country Club in Kajang, staring on Tuesday. And according to PGM Tour general manager Nik Mustapha Nik Mohamed the RM15,000 event has drawn a record field of 71 players in the men’s competition and five in the ladies’ section.
“This is an unusually big turnout for Qualifying School,” said Nik Mustapha. “But what it does tell us, is that the players are raring to go and we expect a similar response for the main events, which start with the RM180,000 PGM Glenmarie Championship and the Glenmarie Ladies Championship (RM30,000) in Shah Alam from Sept 23 to 26.
“There have been no tournaments so far this year, partly because of the Covid-19, and it’s obvious that many of the players will be using Q-School to check where their competition game is at, in preparation for the visit to Glenmarie.”
Indeed, almost all the players TeeUp spoke to this week said they were just happy to be able to play again and were looking to getting back out on the course in tournament mode.
“The last we played tournament golf was last year, so it has been a long while,” said a senior member of the Tour, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We’re all looking forward to getting back out there and playing again because it’s important to us.
“We are professional golfers and while some of the players have started businesses, a lot of them are small enterprises and most of the golfers earn a living from the Tour,” he added.
“The Covid-19 pandemic did not help the situation, but where we are today - preparing for the start of the season - we are just thankful it will be getting underway soon.”
The three events that were initially co-sanctioned by the Asian Development Tour (ADT) have now been listed as Closed Championships. This follows the recent announcement by the Prime Minister that the international borders will not be opened before Dec 31, due to the pandemic.
These tournaments are the Glenmarie Championship, the PGM Northport Championship, also at Glenmarie (Oct 21 to 24) and the PGM UMW Championship at Kota Seriemas Golf & Country Club (Nov 18 to 21).
The PGM Kinrara Closed Championship is scheduled for Kinrara Golf Club from Nov 25-28.
Much of the spotlight will be trained on 2019 PGM Tour Order of Merit winners Amir Nazrin and Ainil Johani Bakar.
Nik Mustapha also said that the two-day briefing for the players will be held at Glenmarie on Sept 14 and 15, with two sessions a day, and 30 players a session. He added that the briefing is to focus on advising their Tour members of the safety and health protocols and standard operating procedures that will have to be followed at the events.
“This is most important and we don’t want to get anything wrong, or misunderstood,” said Nik Mustapha. “There will be zero tolerance when it comes to the SPOs and tournament director Harbans Singh will on hand to share the information with the players at the briefings.
“The golfers will also receive the new Tour handbook and Tour cards, which have been exempted for another nine months because of the pandemic.
“This announcement, as you know, was made by the chairman (Ahmad Sarji) last month.”