Heat no barrier: Jeongwoo Ham wins Singapore Open in style

SINGAPORE: “I can’t stand the heat.” This is a statement from the wire-to-wire winner of the $2m Singapore Open, Korean Jeongwoo Ham , who turned his weakness into success in sauna-like conditions at the Sentosa Golf Club.

His secret: “I just kept thinking: play quickly, get through it, and get back to the hotel, shower, and lie down under the air-conditioning. I wasn’t overthinking the golf.”It must have been more than that. He had four underpar rounds in the International Series event - matched only by second-placed Cameron John - finishing off with three-under 68 under pressure, unaffected by lightning delay of three-and-a-half hours.

The Australian, who started four strokes behind the leader, challenged with a five-under that included a run of five birdies in eight holes either side of the break.Both had a bad start. On the par-four third, Ham stumbled with a triple bogey but John failed to make too much ground with a double. The lead was cut to one shot on the 12th, but Ham, whose textbook golf swing has been the talk of the town, held on for a twostroke win on this long-hitters’ paradise by the sea.

It must be said that there were two winners as Ham and John secured places in this summer’s Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, the tournament being part of the Open Qualifying Series. The Korean who rarely ventures abroad has played only 24 times on the Asian Tour in eight years of his professional life, 16 of those on home soil. “Korean and Asian players playing in The Open was something that I could only be envious of, and I didn’t expect that a dream could become areality,” he said.(The writer is in Singapore at the invitation of the International Series)