KUALA LUMPUR—When the action tees-off at Saujana Golf and Country Club from Feb. 9 to 12, fans will get to follow not one but two holders of the prestigious Masters green jacket as Charl Schwartzel was announced today as the latest player getting ready for ‘Golf Like Never Before’ at the Maybank Championship 2017.
Joining the reigning Masters Champions Danny Willett at the US$3million tournament, the 32-year-old South African won his first Major at Augusta National Golf Club in 2011. He has a further fourteen professional wins worldwide, ten of those on the European Tour. His latest victory came at the Tswane Open in his homeland in February 2016. He finished the 2016 season strongly with a third place finish at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai and took the momentum onto the first event of the 2017 schedule, tying for fourth at the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek.
Schwartzel said, “The Maybank Championship is one of the marquee events in Asia for the European Tour so I am really looking forward to being there. Traveling to Asia and Kuala Lumpur is always a favourite trip among the players. Maybank does a great job for the players and I am excited to experience their ‘golf like never before’ for myself.
“The 2017 season has started well for me so I am feeling good about the year ahead and am excited to see what I can do when I get to Malaysia in February.”
Top Asian favorite Anirban Lahiri is also set for the Saujana showdown. He enjoyed a memorable 2015 season when he won the Maybank Malaysian Open and followed it up two weeks later with victory at the Hero Indian Open. He became the first Indian to finish in the top five of a Major when he shared fifth place at the 2015 US PGA Championship and he made his Presidents Cup debut in the same year. He was subsequently crowned the Asian Tour Order of Merit champion in 2015.
Lahiri holds a PGA Tour card but is a popular player in Asia as he sharpened his game on the Asian Tour en-route to claiming seven victories on the region’s premier Tour.
