The National Schools Games Golf Championships (NSGGC) 2018 held between the 2nd to 4th of April 2018 was remarkable for the high drama and passion that the junior golfers put into this competition and the new scoring records that were set. The stage was set at the Orchid Country Club’s Dendro / Vanda (OCC) course, where this year’s NSGGC was chosen to be held.
Similar to the previous year, the competition was held over 3 days with the Individual events for Boys and Girls A, B and C divisions to be held over the first two days of play and the team competitions were held on the third day. Given to the lack of schools being able to furnish teams, the C girls team competition was cancelled.
This year’s NSGGC saw new competition records made on OCC. As was the case in previous years, the most competitive division was in B Boys Individual competition with the largest field and the most competitive scores. On the first day, Development Squad (DS) player Brandon Han from St Gabriel’s set the bar and took the early lead with a 5 under 68. On the second day, DS player Sean Lee from ACSI came storming back with what must be a one day competition scoring record with a 8 under score of 65, but had to settle for the runners up Boys B Individual position, losing out to Brandon by a two strokes. Any disappointment Sean had felt must have been assuaged, when Sean and his ASCI partner Gabriel Yap, emerged the deserving B Boys Team victors with a 5 under and a 3 under scores respectively on the third day.
In the Boys A Individual competition, John Ho of ACSI, overcame a two stroke deficit from the first day, to edge out DS player Louis Tee of Singapore Sports School (SSP) by achieving an outstanding second day 5 under score of 68. The podium finishers in Boys C Individual competition were testimony to the progress made by the SGA JS players as champion Daryl Low (aggregate score 144), first runners up Ng Wei Jun (aggregate score 152) and second runners up Irvyn Tan (aggregate score 159) are all members of the current JS squad.
Not unexpectedly, the Girls A Individual competition was again won by multiple time winner SGA Elite Squad player, Callista Chen, with DS player Nicole Mok taking the runners up position, giving SSP a 1 – 2 finish (Callista and Nicole also later combined forces to win the Girls A Team competition). Erika Layson of Hwa Chong took the 3rd position with an aggregate 4 over score of 150.
In the Girls B division, the struggle for the title came down to RGS and Nanyang Girls High (NYGH). In the end, DS player Hailey Loh of RGS took the individual title with an aggregate even par score of 146 with second and third positions going to Vanessa Chua and Shayne Lim of NYGH.
More incredible scores were to be found in the Girls C individual division. Similar to the C Boys individual division, all top 3 podium finishers were from the DS/JS squad. After shooting a one over score on the first day, DS player Angel Lim of NYGH shot a 4 under score of 69 on the second day to comfortably win her division title. JS player Jillian Kuk of MGS took the runners up position and JS player Sarah Lim of NYGH took the 3rd position.
In fact given that all the girls divisions teed off from the same red tees, Angel’s overall aggregate score of 3 under would have placed her 2nd overall (behind Callista) among all the girls, which points to a bright future for this 13 year old.
The improvement shown by our junior golfers in this National Schools championship over the course of this one year is truly remarkable. The results of this championship are testimony to the hard work and dedication of the players and all their supporting stakeholders. As schools comprise an essential component of a developing golfers eco-system, we hope that local schools will continue to nurture our young golfers by giving them all the support they need on their golfing journey.
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