Sports

Sunday November 8, 2009

Comfortable Samui victory


SHEER determination and experience propelled the foursome of Tan Choong Keang, Mohamad Zaid Mohd Nor, Ng Jui Keng and Loi Leong Ching to triumph in the Maxis Team Golf Tour 2009 grand final at Koh Samui last weekend.

The four players, who qualified for the final by winning the gross, A, B and C Medal categories in the fifth round at Johor’s Horizon Hills Golf & Country Club, won with a five-point margin in the 36-hole Stableford tournament at Santiburi Samui Country Club.

In the first round their best three scores totaled 101 points for a narrow two-point advantage over the team of Tan Woei Teck, Sukumar Kupusamy, Teo Loong Chua and Tay Kok Chang.

The winners (from left): Choon Keang, Mohd Zaid, Seok Theng, Cheong Ching and Jui Kheng, with Danny Tang from Maxis.

Lying two points further adrift was the combination of S. Sasi Kumar, Kam Chee Kong, Abdul Jabar Baba and Marsidi Adnan, who had a combined handicap of 24.

In the second round, the leaders could only muster 98 points for a two-day aggregate of 199, but it was enough to defeat nearest rivals Sasi, Kam, Abdul Jabar and Marsidi, who finished with 194.

Toh Kim Loong, Loo Ting Tat and Chella-dorai Raju snatched third placing when they scored 187 stableford points, edging Hiew May Foong, Lai Nyuk Seong, Tan Chee Hwa and Zakaria Mohammad on countback.

“Even though we were leading overnight, we told ourselves not to let up and instead go all out to win the title,” said Mohamad Zaid. “We have been competing in the Maxis Team Golf Tour since the programme started nine years ago with some of us having appeared in previous finals. I guess our experience helped us through.

Choong Keang added: “The course was set up tough especially the pin positions in the second round. It was just a matter of holding on and not allowing our emotions to get the better of us.”

For their efforts, the winners received return air tickets to Melbourne courtesy, of Firefly and Malaysia Airlines.

The runner-up team won Hewlett Packard laptops, while the third-placed combination collected Sony Ericsson mobile phones.

A total of 48 players qualified for the grand final by winning their categories in 12 qualifying rounds that started in April.

Hiew, whose team missed out on third spot, gained a measure of consolation when he won the gross title after shooting scores of 78 and 76 for a total of 154. He won a Nokia mobile phone.

The sponsors of the Maxis Team Golf Tour were Astro, Huawei, IBM, Nokia Siemens Networks, OpenWave, Patimas and ZTE, and supported by Firefly, Ingress Auto, Pharmaton and Transview Golf.

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