Puchong [SELANGOR]: Khor Kheng Hwai survived a marathon battle royale against Nachimuthu Ramasamy to clinch his second Professional Golf of Malaysia (PGM) Tour title at the I&P Group Matchplay Championship on Sunday.
The 32-year-old showed real grit and mental determination as he stunned the galleries with an audacious, 18-foot chip for birdie on the 22nd hole to settle the contest at Kinrara Golf Club.
Ending a 17-month wait for his title, Khor described the hard-fought victory as an “emotional one” and noted that it was a timely confidence-booster ahead of the Maybank Championship next week.
“It’s definitely an emotional victory because looking back at last year, I had two final round meltdowns at the Kelantan and Terengganu Championships and I never really recovered from that. I’m delighted to go into a major event next week on a positive footing.”
Khor enjoyed a relatively easy route into the decider, beating Jeremiah Kim Leun Kwang 4&3 in the quarter finals before ending surprise package Amirul Aizat Abdul Bahar’s run with a 5&4 win in the last four.
But the Penangite found 10-time PGM Tour winner Nachimuthu a tougher cookie to crack as the latter rallied from three holes down to square the match on the 18th hole and force extra time.
“I wasn’t playing that great but the format is such that you capitalise on your opponents’ mistakes and I did that pretty well in the earlier rounds.
“Today, I was three-up at the turn but Nachi[muthu] fought back with birdies on 11th and 12th to reduce the arrears before he capitalised on my indecisiveness on the closing hole.
“From there, it was a case of just keeping my head up and staying positive. I think the contest came down to one of us pulling off the spectacular and fortunately, I nailed what I would say was “one-in-a-million” chip to win it,” he added.
Nachimuthu had little left in the tank after playing 113 holes over five rounds. “I was running on adrenaline, to be honest. I gave it my all today but I guess I was tired and on the back foot from the start. I dug deep to pull myself back into contention but I lost to a special shot,” said the seasoned campaigner.
In the third place play-off, Amirul claimed the biggest prize purse of his young professional career by defeating the burgeoning domestic tour’s rising star Shahriffuddin Ariffin 5&4.
