SGA junior team prevails in tough Ryder Cup style matchplay against RSGC / MYFutures Malaysian selection team in inaugural Causeway Cubs Challenge competition.
Held between the 15th – 17th March 2018, this year’s Causeway Cub Challenge competition between the RSGC / MYFutures Malaysian junior selection team and SGA’s junior team was held at the Royal Selangor Golf Club’s (RSGC) championship East Course. The Causeway Cubs format is a Ryder Cup style tournament comprising fourball, foursomes and singles matchplay competition between 14 juniors (of 15 years age and below) from both Malaysia and Singapore. On the 15th March, the Singapore team hastened to play a practice round in the afternoon after arriving in KL by coach and were hosted to a delightful buffet dinner thereafter where they were formally welcomed by Mr. Ahmad Fauzi Ghazali, Chairman MYFutures Junior Tour and Mr. Edward Saminathan, Director MYFutures Junior Tour, and given a comprehensive matchplay rules talk by Mr. Lim Hock Seng.
On the 16th March, the Singapore team, many of whom had no previous matchplay competition experience, competed fiercely against their Malaysian counterparts. In the opening fourball competition, the competition was kicked off by the Singapore pair of Angel Lim and Jillian Kuk who raced to winning the first point of the competition 7 & 6. Anchored by the top Singapore players Brandon Han and Sean Lee, for the boys and Shannon Tan and Inez Ng, for the girls, the fourball competition in the morning saw the 3 pairs of Singapore girls drew 1.5 points to 1.5 points against the Malaysian girls and the Singapore boys just edged out their counterparts 2.5 points to 1.5.
In the afternoon competition of foursomes played on the back nine of the East Course, the Malaysian’s changed their strategy and formed up their strongest pairings and came storming back to contest vigorously every match. Despite a rain delay, the Singaporeans however were not about to roll over and resisted strongly. At the end of the titanic struggle, the teams ended up splitting the points for foursomes with each team taking away 3 ½ points, leaving everything to play for the in the singles competition on the final day.
Despite any fatigue they may have felt after playing 3 consecutive days at Sembawang golf course for HSBC Youth Championship just prior to traveling to KL, the Singaporean juniors stormed out of the gate in the singles competition with Singapore juniors like Inez Ng 4 up after 5 holes, Shayne Lim 3 up after 4 holes, and Jillian Kuk 3 up after 7 holes.
However some matches were fiercely contested like Singaporean Angel Lim’s match against Malaysian Foong Zi Yu where the Malaysian was initially 3 up before Angel’s game caught fire with 3 birdies in a row to level the match. Angel eventually prevailed over the Malaysian 3 & 2 scoring a total of 6 birdies for the match. In another match, Singaporean Shannon Tan came back from being 2 down to finally prevailing 3 & 1 by shooting 5 birdies in her match to thwart her opponent, Malaysian ace player, Grace Chin.
In the end the Singapore team managed to pull ahead in the singles by winning 9 points to 5 resulting in an overall score of 16 ½ points to SGA junior team and 11 ½ points to RSGC / MYFutures selection team.
The Causeway Cubs Challenge competition closed with the prize ceremony after the singles, and the challenge trophy being awarded to Mrs Lyn Sen, Executive Board member of the SGA, and promises exchanged to continue the competition. Although this was a mere friendly competition, there were many takeaways and positives to give hope that this crop of Singapore youngsters provides a bright future for Singapore golf with their high standard of play, their united team spirit and never-say-die fighting spirit. We thank our Malaysian hosts RSGC and MYFutures Junior Tour for their most gracious hospitality and thank the Malaysian team for the tough fight and competition encountered in every match. We believe many good friendships were forged through the furnace of competition.
Many thanks to the tireless efforts of the SGA Junior Development Team and Captain Daryl Thomas in meeting the Singapore juniors needs and pushing them to higher heights. Last but not least, kudos to the parents who made the trip and were there to support their children in every way and were generally the 15th man on the team. – by Kuk Hun Yi , Photo Credits: HJ Han
