The SMBC Singapore Open makes a welcomed return at the Sentosa Golf Club’s award-winning Serapong Course this week. The tournament, jointly sanctioned by the Asian Tour and Japan Golf Tour Organisation, was cancelled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With an increased prize fund of US$1.25 million, up from US$1million from the previous years, the tournament has attracted a competitive field of top Asian golfers, including former champions and Order of Merit (OOM) winners.
Korea’s Joohyung Kim, who leads the current Order of Merit, a status boosted by his Singapore International victory last week, will be looking to consolidate his position on the OOM and hopes to be crowned the winner by the weekend. It would definitely be a high-pressure outing for him this week playing on one of Asia’s most demanding golf courses.
According to Andrew Johnston, Sentosa Golf Club’s General Manager and Director of Agronomy, since the tournament was held in 2020, a few fundamental changes have been made to the layout.
Sentosa Golf Club has been the host venue for the Singapore Open since 2005
“The renovations have preserved many of the Serapong’s iconic holes, although one major redesign has occurred on the sixth hole. The tee boxes have been realigned with the fairway and moved closer to the water, with a large waste bunker added down the entire left-hand side. This means players will now have to think more strategically during the tournament as they won’t be able to cut the corner down the left,” said Johnston.
According to Johnston, minor changes to the tee complexes of holes 2, 4, 6, 7, and 8 on the front nine of the Serapong have brought them closer to the water, and by adding walls to increase the size of the tee to give them more space, they will bring more hazards into play.
Though none of the bunker locations has changed, the look and feel of them have been modified, giving, as Johnston puts it, a new rugged, creative serrated edge look with higher sand lines.
He added, “By using 6,000 tonnes of sand, an increase of 1.7ha, we have not only increased the size of the bunkers by nearly 30%, making them look deeper and bigger, but also helped to reinstate consistency, texture, and tournament-ready compaction for improved playability throughout the tournament.”
With tee-boxes re-levelled and reinstated with a tabletop flat finish that the Serapong is renowned for, the players will tee-off fairways that have been re-grassed with a fresh, clean layer of Zoysia Matrella.
The greens have also been given a facelift and made more challenging with the addition of the false front nicknamed ‘The Dragon’s Tongue.
“Players will need to find the correct yardage with their approach shot to find the centre of the green,” said Johnston.
He added further, “The greens are what we pride ourselves on the most. Like every year of the championship, we will be looking to get the smooth roll and pace of the greens set up correctly, around high 13s to low 14s.
“As well as generating the perfect speeds, the greens should also showcase good levels of consistency throughout the tournament as during the renovations, each of the greens soil profile was modified by introducing new carbon technology through a drill-and-fill process to boost soil chemistry and profile structure.”
The Serapong is renowned for showcasing spectacular views of the Singapore cityscape
Interestingly, according to Johnston, all these changes to the layout would not affect scoring.
The idea, according to him, is to make the level of difficulty the same as in previous years. The plan during the renovations was to find the right balance between providing the players with a challenge and allowing for entertaining high-scoring golf to take place. It was the plan never to make the Serapong more difficult.
However, the golfers will have to deal with a few tighter lines off the tee with extra hazards in play this week.
“They will all need to think more strategically when it comes to where they will need to land their tee shots to give them the best possible opportunity on the approach to the green,” Johnston concluded.
