Puchong [SELANGOR]: Ben Leong put years of frustration behind him after clinching a clinical one-shot victory at the Professional Golf of Malaysia (PGM) I&P Group Championship on Saturday.
The Sabahan returned with a flawless seven-under 74 to top the leaderboard at Kinrara Golf Club, ahead of a marauding Shaifubari Muda, who recorded the lowest-ever round in the history of the Tour, with a blistering 10-under 61.
The trio of Wilson Choo (64), Danny Chia (65) and Shaaban Hussin (70) were six strokes adrift in joint third with joint overnight leader Iylia Jamil (72) settling for sole possession of sixth on six-under 278 at the RM170,000 tournament.
Six long years have lapsed since Leong claimed a much-storied hat-trick of professionals wins and the 28-year-old’s muted reaction after tapping in for his maiden PGM Tour title spoke volumes of his desire to move on from a career-threatening back injury, which saw him sidelined from competitive golf for almost a year and half.
“Yeah, it’s been a long while actually but better late than never. This win means a lot to me because I’ve been out for a quite a while. I remember lying down in my bed after I first hurt my back, not being able to walk or struggling to even do the most basic of things and I can still recall how long those days were.
“Looking back, I’m really happy to be just able to walk and play golf again but winning is real bonus,” said Leong, who marked his card with seven birdies to total 14-under-270 overall.
Having shown spurts of brilliance since his return late last year, Leong came into the final round with a share of the lead alongside Iylia and knew that he had to give himself enough birdie chances if he was to emerge triumphant.
“I being playing really well coming into this tournament but just wasn’t draining my fair share of putts in the opening two rounds. I just had to stay patient and take it easy. It came down to trusting my reads and believing in my stroke and it worked out today.
“I just tried to stay in the moment and not get ahead of myself – it’s easy to look really far ahead when you’re playing well but I told myself that it isn’t finished until the last putt drops,” noted the one-time Asian Tour winner, adding that he didn’t know of Shaifubari’s exploits until he walked up to the 17th tee.
“It was until I birdied the 16th that one of the guys told me that Shaifubari has set the clubhouse target at 13-under and I thought at the moment that I was one behind. I was really in the zone at the moment and I figured that I had to birdie the next two holes to clinch it outright but it turned out in the end that my birdie at 17th had done it for me,” added Leong.
Despite coming so close to winning his second PGM Tour title, veteran Shaifubari was delighted with his vintage effort, which included five birdies in six holes around the turn, which nonetheless will not stand as the new course record due to preferred lies condition.
“It was an amazing round and I really believed at one point that it was going to be very difficult for anyone to match that but nonetheless, I’m happy for Ben. I don’t think that I’ve struck the ball any better in my whole career and my putting was just great to the point that I drained four birdies from around the 30-40 feet range.
“I am still very happy with how I finished the tournament. I shot a second round 65 on Thursday and generally played well this week, so to finish like this, it’s just great,” noted Shaifubari.
Leading final round scores:
270 – Ben Leong 70-70-66-64
271 – Shaifubari Muda 74-65-71-61
277 – Wilson Choo 72-71-70-64, Danny Chia 69-73-70-65, Shaaban Hussin 70-68-69-70
278 – Iylia Jamil 70-69-67-72
279 – Abel Tam 72-66-72-69, Nicholas Fung 73-70-67-69, Sukree Othman 69-68-72-70
280 – Kemarol Baharin 74-72-64-70
