For Immediate Release: Saturday 12th November 2005
Asian Seniors Tour Communications
Stewart Ginn, the Australian Champions Tour player currently residing in Kuala Lumpur, whose most recent victory includes the 2002 Ford Senior Players Championship, one of the four majors on the US Champions Tour, led the field on Friday with a commanding two under par 70 in the first round of the 2005 Asian Senior Masters tournament at Palm Resort Golf and Country Club.
Day two saw him return a 75 for a two-round total of 145, one over par, which leads an impressive field that started out on Friday with a total of 105 players from over 20 countries, including the UK, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan and Thailand.
The winner of tomorrow’s final day will pick up a cheque for S$25,500 along with the Asian Senior Masters trophy. Ginn, who started out on Friday with all guns blazing, carded four birdies in his first five holes, but succumbed to the massive 7,065 yards of the Palm Resort Cempaka course under the extremely testing conditions of Johor Baru sunshine and humidity. Following closely behind Ginn are Randall Vines (Australia), T T Chen (Taiwan) and John Williamson (New Zealand), all on 148, and Malaysia’s own recent addition to the Asian Seniors Tour, M Ramayah (149).
The defending Asian Senior Masters champion, Choi Yoon Soo, found the conditions very tough, with an 11 over par two-round total of 155, but will nevertheless proceeds into the final round following today’s cut to the top 75 and ties.
Amongst those contesting the Asian Senior Masters Amateur Championship are the local favourites, Ng Yau Loong and Aidil Shah Manjit (both from Royal Johor), and Paul Lim (Palm Resort) pitted against two rising amateur stars from Singapore, Feldman Tan (SICC) and Lion Goh (Laguna National), along with Ms. Bong Moy (Palm Resort), the only female to have made it through to the Amateur Final, who will be teeing it up tomorrow to become the first female ASM Amateur Champion.
All ASM Amateur Championships are played off-the-stick, so the eventual winner will indeed be the true champion. Each of tomorrow’s finalists, in this all-Malaysia/Singapore battle, will be trying to emulate the success of the 2003 ASM Amateur Champion, Choo Tze Huang, who subsequently went on to win the Singapore Amateur Championship earlier this year.
The launch of the Malaysian leg of the growing Asian Seniors Tour was graced by a welcome speech from the Malaysian Sports Commissioner, Tan Sri Elyas Omar, at the welcome reception on Tuesday evening. The Commissioner was very forthright in his support of the Asian Seniors Tour, and provided some strong words of encouragement for the planned events for the year ahead, including the 2006 ASM in Kuala Lumpur.
In keeping with the first event, the 2005 ASM welcomed hundreds of amateur golfers into a series of Pro-Am events, staged from Tuesday through Thursday, and a unique Amateur Qualifier event which saw representatives from far and wide, including South Africa, Dubai, England, Australia, and throughout the Asian Region, including virtually every golf club in Johor, and both golf and social clubs from Singapore.
The stage is now set for an exciting final-day climax for both the 2005 Asian Senior Masters Professional tournament and the Amateur Championship Final. The smart money is on Ginn, and possibly Vines, but who knows who might come along with
For further details please contact Matthew Murray or Evelyn Lee
Tournament Director / General Manager
Tel: +65 6262 4843; Fax: +65 6262 1519
matthew@asm-singapore.com / evelyn@asm-singapore.com
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