Maybank Malaysian Open

It was off to Kuala Lumpur for me last week to help out our Academy students in their preparation for the US$2.5 million dollar Maybank Malaysian Open.

The tournament was played at the beautiful Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club (pics below). With the event co-sanctioned with the European Tour, it attracted the strongest field ever assembled in Malaysia for the countries National Open.

With the likes of Martin Kaymer, Rory McIlroy, Charles Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen, the tournament had actually gained more World Ranking points than the Valero Texas Open being played at the same time on the PGA Tour.

My week started out walking a practice round with Scott Barr, who was joined by fellow Aussie David Gleeson and America's Todd Hamilton (pic below right)....one of 5 Major Champions in the field. Hamilton captured the 2004 Open Championship in a playoff against Ernie Els at Royal Troon, won the PGA Tour's Honda Classic and has accumulated another 11 victories on the Japan Tour during his career. It was therefore a great experience for myself and Scott to observe and discuss tournament preparations with Todd.



Did some good work with Scott early in the week, squaring up his clubface and shallowing his downswing path. These minor adjustments together with a change of shaft in his rescue club, made a significant improvement to his ball flight.

2005 US Open Champion Michael Campbell was also in the Malaysian Open field. Campbell has been working closely with Gary Edwin since December last year and is evidently getting better every week. I helped Cambo and Gary Edwin out early in the week by taking some video footage which was emailed across to the Academy in Australia where Gary instructed Campbell and myself of a few things for him to focus on technically in his preparation for the event.


After monitoring these positions in Cambo's swing during practice on Tuesday and Wednesday it was obvious to me that he was going to put up a good performance. Both Gary and Michael have done some great work in their short time together....exciting to see Cambo getting his game back on track. From what I saw of Campbell last week, it's only a matter before he's back in the winners circle.

The weather delays in Kuala Lumpur proved to be a real challenge for those players teeing off late on Friday...unfortunately that was the case for both Scott Barr and Michael Campbell. When play was finally abandoned on Friday, Barr was playing superbly and featured on the leaderboard at 6-under through 28 holes. Both players would return to complete their 2nd round early on Saturday morning. Barr's momentum from Friday did not quite carry over into Saturday, however rounds of 69,73 saw him comfortably survive the cut mark. It was a brilliant 2nd round for Campbell who after opening with 73, reeled off 8 birdies to shoot a 5-under par 67 and climb his way up the leaderboard. Cambo put together yet another solid round on Saturday afternoon, posting a 2-under 70.

With sweltering heat, difficult pin locations and faster greens, Sunday was a tough and slightly disappointing end to the week with Campbell and Barr shooting final rounds of 76 and 77 respectively. Keep an eye on both these players, as the way they are striking the ball, they will surely feature highly in several events this season.

In a most impressive display of golf, the tournament was won by teenage sensation Matteo Manassero....just two days shy of his 18th birthday!