Asian Amateur Championship 2011

Jeremy Ellwood arrives in Singapore for the third Asian Amateur Championship which tees off on Thursday at the Singapore Island Country Club

Singapore Island Country Club

I'll confess to a little naivety on my part here. When I got final details through of my trip to Singapore to cover the third staging of the Asian Amateur Championship, my first question was, "which airport am I flying into?" My colleague Neil Tappin quickly put me right, pointing out that as it's a group of islands less than twice the size of the Isle of Wight, it only really has call for one international airport - Changi - where I landed at 2.30pm this afternoon local time (7.30am UK time).

To be honest I knew relatively little about the place then, but a little more now thanks to my own observations and experiences - it's a little under 7,000 miles and 13 hours from Heathrow, they drive on the left, it's extremely humid so weight gain shouldn't be an issue this week - and then from a very helpful taxi driver who informed me that...

- Singapore gained independence from Britain in 1963 and from Malaysia in 1965 - The main island measures roughly 47 x 24km - It is connected to Malaysia by two bridges - one in the north and one in the west - There are many different religions, but Christianity is probably the main one - Table-tennis (silver at the Beijing Olympics) and soccer are the main sports with Man Utd and Liverpool both attracting fanatical followings

I'm not here to cover either of those sports - though I was a dab-hand at Ping-Pong in my youth - but rather the third Asian Amateur Championship being staged at the New course at Singapore Island Country Club (SICC) from Thursday to Sunday this week (72-hole strokeplay) following successful events in China and Japan in 2009 and 2010.

SICC boasts four courses in two separate locations - I know this for a fact as I went to the wrong one first, realised my error, called the cab company and got a slightly bemused driver returning to pick me up having not even made it back to the main gates. He looked at me like I was some kind of fool. The New course, at the club's Island location, was renovated by five-time Open champion Peter Thomson back in 2002. Daylight only permitted the briefest of looks today, but I will undertake a full course recce tomorrow to check it out. Will an Asian player ever match Thomson's Open record? Who knows, but initiatives like the Asian Amateur Championship - a joint venture among the Asia Pacific Golf Confederation, The R&A and the Masters Tournament - can only serve to further strengthen the growth of the game in this region

Jeremy Ellwood
Contributing Editor

Jeremy Ellwood has worked in the golf industry since 1993 and for Golf Monthly since 2002 when he started out as equipment editor. He is now a freelance journalist writing mainly for Golf Monthly. He is an expert on the Rules of Golf having qualified through an R&A course to become a golf referee. He is a senior panelist for Golf Monthly's Top 100 UK & Ireland Course Rankings and has played all of the Top 100 plus 91 of the Next 100, making him well-qualified when it comes to assessing and comparing our premier golf courses. He has now played 1,000 golf courses worldwide in 35 countries, from the humblest of nine-holers in the Scottish Highlands to the very grandest of international golf resorts. He reached the 1,000 mark on his 60th birthday in October 2023 on Vale do Lobo's Ocean course. Put him on a links course anywhere and he will be blissfully content.

Jezz can be contacted via Twitter - @JezzEllwoodGolf


Jeremy is currently playing...

Driver: Ping G425 LST 10.5˚ (draw setting), Mitsubishi Tensei AV Orange 55 S shaft

3 wood: Ping G425 Max 15˚ (set to flat +1), Mitsubishi Tensei AV Orange 65 S shaft

Hybrid: Ping G425 17˚, Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro Orange 80 S shaft

Irons 3-PW: Ping i525, True Temper Dynamic Gold 105 R300 shafts

Wedges: Ping Glide 4.0 50˚ and 54˚, 12˚ bounce, True Temper Dynamic Gold 105 R300 shafts

Putter: Ping Fetch 2021 model, 33in shaft (set flat 2)

Ball: Varies but mostly now TaylorMade Tour Response