Nasrullah Zulkifli
Another battle royale is in store when the country’s top professionals, led by Toyota Tour’s newest champion Nasrullah Zulkifli and veteran Danny Chia gather at the Palm Resort Golf & Country Club here tomorrow in a bid to lift the coveted title of Supra Cup champion.
Nasrullah, a surprise but popular winner of the Hilux Cup in Kota Kinabalu last month, showed nerves of steel to achieve a wire-to-wire victory, outlasting seasoned campaigner and local favourite Ben Leong by a stroke and Paul San a stroke further adrift.
But despite the recent victory, Nasrullah is keeping his expectations low. “I do think I can play well at Palm Resort. The Allamanda course is quite a challenge so I’ll just have fun with it. I expect some of the newly turned pros to play well there. It’ll be nice to see how much I’ve improved when I compete in the Supra Cup.”
The 54-hole tournament tees-off on Tuesday with the final round on Thursday. It is the sixth event on the Toyota Tour which is organised by the Professional Golf Malaysia.
Leading the Order of Merit is Paul San who registered his first Toyota Tour victory in the Vios Cup at Templer Park CC. Others expected to contend are Galven Green who won the first two tournaments back-to-back at Saujana GCC and Glenmarie GCC, Nicholas Fung, Zia Izzuddeen, Syahiran Syakir and local favourite Daeng Abdul Rahman who notched his maiden Toyota Tour win in the Camry Cup at Forest City GC.
The Ladies Championship looks to be finely contested with Geraldine Wong, Aretha Pan, Jocelyn Chee, Michelle Koh and Durriyah Damian leading the professional challenge. The dark horse is in-form Winnie Ng.
Since returning after graduating in the USA two months ago, she has been very busy having won the Malaysian Ladies Amateur Open at Templer Park and the week later, the RSGC Amateur Open in convincing styles. The 23-year-old intends to pursue golf as a career and will be looking forward to obtaining her Toyota Tour card at the Qualifying School in Kota Seriemas GC next month.
Whether she turns professional this year or next, will depend on the events available to her the rest of the year. Winnie will also be looking at participating in the qualifying schools in Taiwan and China.
“I’m driven by being the best I can be in golf,” said Winnie at Palm Resort. “It is also my dream to one day represent Malaysia in the Olympics. It is such an honour but so difficult and I feel for Ashley (Lau) in Paris at the moment. It is such a tough course and there’s so much pressure … it can get to you.”
The Allamanda Course is one of three championship layouts at Palm Resort, the other two being the Cempaka and the Melati. The Roland Fream-designed Allamanda stretches out to 6,866 yards and boasts numerous water hazards, sand traps and rolling fairways that add to its adventure.
