Asian players grab dream spots in Barclays Singapore Open

Singapore: November 7: The US$6 million Barclays Singapore Open is truly "open" with a variety of ways for non-exempt players to qualify for what's become known as "Asia's Major".

The latest group to seal their spots in the 204-man field at Sentosa Golf Club was seven players from the ASEAN PGA Tour. The Thai trio of Atthaphon Prathummannee, Thanyakon Khrongpha and Tanatchan Puaktes, Malaysians Nicholas Fung and Rashid Ismail, Rory Hie of Indonesia and Filipino Jay Bayron booked their tickets from the Order of Merit after last week's Sabah Masters.

Young gun Fung was delighted to be heading to the Barclays Singapore Open, which tees off on Thursday. "I am excited at winning a spot in the Barclays Singapore Open. It is a great tournament with a great field," he said. "I felt a bit of pressure in the final round of the Sabah Masters as I was in a competitive group and maybe that led to a number of uncharacteristic mistakes."

Bayron will be looking to make the cut for the second year running at Sentosa Golf Club. He shot 72-67-72 before slipping down the leaderboard with a closing 80 over The Serapong Course in 2010. Singaporeans Gary Kwek and Chang Ren-Chiat booked places in their National Open in qualifying over The Tanjong Course last week. The other qualifiers were Americans C. J. Gatto and Will Yanagasiwa,

England's Miles Tunnicliff, Steven O'Hara of Scotland and Australia's Kieran Pratt. Leading players from local tours in China, India and Korea will also get the chance to compete in the European Tour/Asian Tour co-sanctioned event.

Former Asian Tour number one Liang Wen-chong who was 10th last year, and Su Dong will fly the Chinese flag. Kang Kyung-nam, who won US$254,400 last year after finishing fifth, leads the contingent from the Korean Golf Tour that also includes Hong Soon-sang, Park Sang-hyun, Choi Ho-sung and Park Do-kyu. Ashok Kumar, Mukesh Kumar, Rashid Khan, Mithun Perera and Chiragh Kumar will represent the Professional Golf Tour of India.