Tan Sri Dato’ Megat Zaharuddin - Courtesy of Maybank

Maybank Championship golf tournament returns this year with a list of things to lure players and spectators — with the newly revamped Palm Course at Saujana Golf and Country Club in Selangor, Malaysia, among the highlights. The Jakarta Post’s Niken Prathivi talked with Maybank chairman Tan Sri Dato’ Megat Zaharuddin Megat Mohd Nor, who is an avid golfer himself, about the US$3 million tournament that will run on Feb. 9 to 12. Star golfers Danny Willett of Britain and Anirban Lahiri of India are among participants

Here are the excerpts from the recent interview in Jakarta.

Question: What should we expect at this year’s Maybank Championship?

Answer: This year, we drop the “Malaysia” name, and have gone with just Maybank Championship. Hopefully, it will become a start of a bigger thing in Asia.

The theme that we’ve adopted for this year is “Golf Like Never Before”. We’re trying to bring the five senses for golfers as well spectators to experience.

We’ll start with the exciting one: taste. We have invited Michelin star chef from London, Anton Massiman. He is going to cook up cuisine that hopefully some spectators will be able to sample during the tournament.

For feel, we’re going to bring a concept from our corporate social responsibility [CSR] to the event, the Maybank eco-weavers program, which is a Pan Asia CSR program that is placed in Cambodia and Indonesia. We chose this project to support the weavers in different countries. To upgrade the quality of the products, so they can fetch higher value in the world market.

For see, there are many people called armchair golfers in the sport. Those are people who like golf, but only sit on the armchairs. What we’ll do at the event is that we’ll provide virtual reality [VR] golf — so they can sit on their armchairs and watch the action through the VR tools.

Meanwhile for hear, we’ve engaged with one of the funniest people in the world: Harith Iskander. He will hopefully excite people by describing what golf is all about in his own way. The idea is to not just make jokes about the good golfers, but to also make youngster enthusiastic about golf.

Finally for smell, we’re trying to bring the action very close to the people watching the event. Bring them closer to the action.

Another difference is that the event will be held at the Saujana Golf and Country Club, which has been revamped. The last time our event [Malybank Malaysia Open] was held at Saujana was in 2009. Since then, the course has been extended, exciting and a lot of pro golfers who would love to play on this 7,200-yard [6,583-m] course.

What’s are the highlights of the Palm Course at Saujana?

I’ve played at Saujana since it has been revamped quite a few times, including with pro golfers who are going to play at the tournament, including Masters champion Danny Willet.

First, the course has been made more difficult due to the lengthening — going from about 6,900 yards to 7,200. Second, in some of places the layout has been changed so the golfers have to know where to hit the ball to. If you hit the ball to the wrong place, then it will make it even harder for you to get the ball back onto the green. The greens, at least according to Willet, are very small. Accuracy is very important. Another thing that’s interesting at Saujana is that its greens are sloping. If you put your ball on a slope, for example, the greens will be very fast during the tournament, then your chance of making a birdie or eagle is reduced. Hence, course management will be extremely important.

Which holes might be tricky? The eighth and ninth, new holes from the revamp, both are quite long. At these holes there are bunkers placed strategically on the fairways, so you’d need to know how to hit either across or before the bunkers to get into good position to take advantage of the back shot into the greens. Another difficult hole has always been hole number two, which is a par three — about 2,500 meters. The green on this hole is four layers, so it depends on where the pin is going to be placed on the green and how you’re going to hit. Hole number 17 might also challenging — a short hole with 260 meters.

Which player do you think is going to surprise people during the tournament?

Definitely our sponsored player, Gavin Green of Malaysia. I’ve been hoping to have a Malaysian winner in our tournaments over the past 11 years, but none so far. Two Asians that won our previous tournaments were Lahiri [2015 Malaysia Open] and Thai Kiradech Aphibarnrat [2013 Malaysia Open].

This year, we introduced an ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] category — excluded 13 participants from Malaysia — with five places for top golfers from Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Myanmar and Philippines. George Gandranata will represent Indonesia. So, imagine if George wins.

Could this tournament open the door for Southeast Asian golfers to move up a higher level?

Well, if a golfer wins our event, then he gets an automatic exemption on the European Tour and Asian Tour, meaning that the golfer can play in any event [held by the two institutions]. Southeast Asian countries only have two golfers — Thais Thongchai Jaidee and Aphibarnrat — that have gotten access [to those tours] in our past 11 tournaments.

Last, who is your all-time favorite golfer?

Previously, I’d say Tiger Woods. My favorite at the moment is Rory McIlroy, because I’ve played with him. He’s still young enough to achieve great things in the future. Unfortunately for him, he has a lot of competition, but he is determined to do well.

He has competition from Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, so it’s going to be exciting to watch.

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