"Golf Like Never Before" draws more star players to Maybank Championship  12:00, 15/12/2016

Charl Schwartzel of South Africa

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 favourite 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.

Anirban Lahiri of India/ Image by Agency - Sports Mantra

Joining the field of top players from the European Tour and Asian Tour will be a number of local players including top Malaysian amateur Daeng Abdul Rahman Abdul Aziz. Earning his spot thanks to his World Ranking of 414, Daeng was also given an invite to last week’s PGM Maybank Players’ Championship where he finished in an impressive fourth position. This will be his first appearance at the Maybank Championship but has played with some big names on home soil before and he learnt a lot from the experience.

Daeng Abdul Rahman Abdul Aziz of Malaysia

Also securing their spot as a local entry is Ben Leong who claimed victory at the PGM Maybank Players’ Championship in a play-off against Maybank ASEAN golf ambassador Gavin Green. It was his fourth PGM victory in a row, which is all the more impressive after being hampered by injury for a long spell in his career.

Ben Leong of Malaysia

Stay tuned for more player news in the coming weeks including the players selected for the new ASEAN category as Maybank continue to develop their support of golf across the region.