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Iskandar Johor Open 2010
Paddy, Cruised The Stars’ Victory
The participation of a star player in
a golf event in Asia is one of the
organizer’s effort to raise the prestige
of the event, besides it will attract the
interest of the local golf communities
in the local golf development.
And yet it’s not easy for the organizer to choose
the star who will appear at the show. It takes
a thorough observation including the star
readiness for the event, and his appearance fee
that is surely high-priced. And the spectators
might as well expect to see some interesting attraction from the players who are rated in the
stars exemption category.
One of the golf events that successfully exhibited
the star players’ best performance in South
East Asian was Iskandar Johor Open. Since its
inaugural series in 2007, three of its four winners
were the world players ; Retief Goosen, a two-time
US Open winner , in 2008, a PGA Tour star from
Korea, K. J Choi in 2009 and this year was taken
by two-time The Open champion from Ireland,
Padraig “Paddy” Harrington , last October 17.
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Opening his first round at Horizon Hills Golf and
Country Club-Johor, Padraig Harrington superbly showed his star by carding a spectacular 64
and shared the lead with young Thai Kiradech
Aphibarnrat and Australian Marcus Both.
Paddy’s perfect game in the second round
could not be chased by anyone including three
previous winners , K.J. Choi, Retief Goosen and
Artemio Murakami, and also the 2010 European
Ryder Cup Captain, Colin Montgomery. Paddy
finished a total 13-under par 231 to firm his
position at the top of leaderboard.
Out of Paddy’s sparkling performance , the
competition nuance at 2010 Iskandar Johor
Open was unquestionably reflecting a highrated
competition of the players. Its projected
cut line of even par could be considered as a
tough cut line that had made some of the Asian
Tour finest players such as Tony Carolan (AUS),
Nick Redfern (ENG), Mars Pucay (PHIL), Chapchai
Nirat (THA) were edged out early. Two seeded
local players also joined the group , Airil Rizman
and S. Sivachandran.
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Paddy kept his power in the third round to notch a
68 and sealed his position atop the leaderboard . This
was regarded as his most consistent performance
in the last one year. He even didn’t show any pain
of his neck injury that he had . In fact, he was still in
his recovery time for some weeks.
Closing the final round at 3-under par 69 at total
268 , Padraig Harrington victoriously won his
third title in Asia , put the Korean Noh Seungyul
on second place with margin of three shots.
With this runner up position, he stretched his
lead on the 2010 Asian Tour Order of Merit.
“Winning is a habit. Every time you win, it is
important but when you haven’t won for a while it does add a bsit more emphasis to it. It
makes it all the more memorable”, said Paddy
after receiving the Iskandar Cup and a check
of US$198,125.
Like or dislike, the victory of the star players in
Iskandar Johor Open has made this Asian Tour
series one of the most prestigious yearly tour
that is most craved in South East Asia especially
in Malaysian.
That means, the star episode will keep going
on…
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