Malaysia’s Gavin Green is raring to get back into action at the Singapore International this week after a much-needed break from a long and gruelling 2021. The US$1 million tournament, played at the Tanah Merah Country Club’s Tampines Course, is the penultimate event of the Asian Tour’s 2020-21 season.
“I feel stronger now,” said Green, the 2017 Asian Tour Order of Merit winner.
Gavin Green of Malaysia at a press conference during an official practice round on Wednesday January 12, 2022 ahead of The Singapore International golf event at Tanah Merah Country Club, (Tampines Course). Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour.
“At least I feel stronger. I was so weak by the fifth month that I was out, and I was out for seven and a half months. By the fourth/fifth month, I was done. I was just done, and it was tough. But I still gave it my best shot as good as I could.”
The 28-year-old struggled with his form last year playing in Europe.
“My game was very disappointing. I was obviously very hard on myself. As a golfer, it was hard to accept it, that it was that bad. But then again, I’ve had good people around me – my parents, my friends, my coach, we’ve always talked about it. It’s part of the game. You just kind of learn to live with it, learn from it and when it happens again, which it will at some point, just bounce back quicker, don’t dwell on it so much. And I feel like this break was huge. I just feel so much happier now playing golf again.”
Green is also competing in next week’s SMBC Singapore Open at Sentosa Golf Club ‒ the final event of the Asian Tour’s 2020-21 season.
Thailand’s Jazz Janewattananond will also be in the field this week and is looking forward for some positive results after a difficult past year.
Jazz said, “This is my first event of the year, I had a long break. Didn’t touch the golf clubs for 20 days, so I’m pretty much trying to get back on track, get back into the groove. It’s [The Singapore International] almost like a warm-up event but, hopefully, I can create some positive results to move forward.”
Jazz and Green both competed in the two-leg Asian Tour Phuket Series at the end of last year before taking five weeks off.
“[At the end of 2021] I felt like my physical ability was not that tired but mentally, I was gone,” added Jazz.
“I couldn’t think, I was on the road for a year and a half. With no news of Thailand opening up, I didn’t miss home at all, but once they said Thailand was going to do the test and go scheme, it finally clicked that I actually wanted to go home, and I was feeling homesick. So once I arrived in Thailand, my mind wasn’t on golf, so it was good to kind of get away from it.”
Jazz Janewattananond of Thailand during the practice round of The Singapore International at Tanah Merah Country Club, (Tampines Course). Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour.
Jazz is determined to rediscover the form that saw him win the 2019 Asian Tour Order of Merit title, with four victories, and get back into the top-50 in the world but says the Tampines Course ‒ which was re-opened in 2019 after renovations ‒ is an unexpected and difficult challenge to the start the year.
He said: “I played the Pro-Am yesterday and have to say I found five to six really long holes which I didn’t expect, and this golf course is a beast. It’s built on a very big property. So, I’m looking forward to playing it.”
Both Green and Janewattananond are using this tournament to evaluate their game ahead of another critical year in their career.
