Mardan & Lam hope for third time lucky at World Cup

Mardan Mamat will be hoping to be third time lucky together with teammate Lam Chih Bing when they compete at the World Golf Championships - Barbados World Cup from December 7-10.

Mardan and Lam will feature in their third World Cup together after sailing through the qualifiers in September in Malaysia. The Singaporeans will be driven to excel against the 23 other nations that include defending champions Bradley Dredge and Stephen Dodd of Wales and highest ranked team from England Luke Donald and David Howell.

It will be a tight race to the finish but with the support of his wife Nazariah, Mardan hopes to make his maiden appearance at the Sandy Lane Resort’s Country Club Course in St. James a memorable outing.

“It will be my first time to Barbados so I am really looking forward to it. I heard it has beautiful beaches and places to visit so I hope to spend some time with my wife and explore that beautiful island,” said Mardan.

“It will be a tough field in Barbados but Lam and I are really looking forward to the challenge. The top players will be out there so we have to be at our best. We hope to strive for a good result, this is golf and you will never know,” he said.

It will be the duo’s second consecutive World Cup after their maiden appearance in 2002.

Mardan made history in 2006 when he enjoyed an emotional triumph at the OSIM Singapore Masters emerging as the first ever Singaporean to win a European Tour co-sanctioned event in March. He set the pace since day one and fended off last year’s winner Nick Dougherty in an exciting duel. He also finished third at the Bangkok Airways Open in June and is now among the top players in Asia currently ranked 10th on the Asian Tour’s UBS Order of Merit.

The potent partnership of Mardan and Lam was reflected through their top class performance at the qualifiers when they overpowered Italian pairing of Francesco Molinari and Emanuele Canonica who finished runner-up seven strokes adrift of the Singaporeans.

Other Asian stalwarts who will make their way to the Caribbean include Korea’s Charlie Wi, the Maybank Malaysian Open winner in February, who will join forces with Mizuno Open winner Hur Suk-ho and Japan’s Hideto Tanihara, who won twice on the domestic circuit, with his partner Tetsuji Hiratsuka. Wi, who is ranked fifth on the UBS Order of Merit, received a timely confidence boost when he earned his card on the US PGA Tour this week.

The other top teams include Henrik Stenson, who won in Qatar in January, and Carl Petterson from Sweden, Ireland’s Padraig Harrington, winner of the Dunhill Links Championship, and Paul McGinley, Spanish pair of Miguel Angel Jimenez and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano who won the BMW Asian Open in China in April and Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie and Marc Warren.

The United States, who won the World Cup a record 23 times, will be represented by Stewart Cink and J.J Henry.

December 6, 2006

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