Singapore’s golfers seek confidence booster at World Amateur Team C’ships ahead of SEA Games

SINGAPORE – In one of their final tune-ups for the Dec 9-20 SEA Games, the Singapore women’s golf team will be vying for the Oct 1-4 Espirito Santo Trophy, as part of the World Amateur Team Championship (WATC) in Singapore.

At a press conference held at the Tanah Merah Country Club on Sept 30, national coach Murray Smit said that his team are “really excited” about the week ahead.

The South African said: “There’s not too many times that you get the opportunity to play in front of your home country in such a phenomenal event.

“It’ll be the biggest amateur team event in the world, so I know that all the ladies are already looking forward to that opportunity being in front of their friends and family.

“We’ve had some really good showings the last two outings, both in Paris (2022) and in Abu Dhabi (2023), where on the men’s side we had a best finish in Paris, and then a best finish for the team in Abu Dhabi on the women’s side, as well as some excellent individual performances.”

The WATC is a biennial event that comprises two competitions – the women’s Espirito Santo Trophy (Oct 1-4) and the men’s Eisenhower Trophy (Oct 8-11).

In the 2023 edition in Abu Dhabi, the Singapore women’s team comprising Chen Xingtong, Inez Ng and Aloysa Atienza finished tied-20th out of 35 along with Colombia and Mexico.

Ng, who is 22 now, finished tied-fourth in the individual category, shooting a nine-under 279 after four rounds.

For the 2025 edition, Valencia Chang, 19, will replace Atienza, with the same trio representing Singapore at the regional Games in Thailand.

Smit added: “We went and did some training in Thailand a few weeks ago to really start preparing for the SEA Games and to have a look at that golf course.

“But at this stage, our focus is firmly on this week and trying to put up a great result. Playing well this week would go a long way to sort of building confidence towards that event, seeing how we possibly compare to some of the other players and teams from South-east Asia.

“We’ve got the same team that will be representing us at the SEA Games, so I think it’s a great opportunity for them to test themselves against the world-class field.”

Xingtong, 16, said: “This is probably the strongest tournament outside of pro events that I’ve played and the previous rendition in Abu Dhabi.

“Definitely looking forward to hopefully learning quite a lot of things from this field, considering we have so many top 50 World Amateur Golf Ranked players here.”

Singapore will come in as the highest WATC field-ranked country out of the 36 participating, but Smit said to be called favourites would be a “long shot”.

He added: “I’m not sure we come in as the favourites this week, considering how strong a lot of the countries are coming into this event and the fact that our previous best finish on the female side was 20th.

“We’ve prepped really hard to make sure we give ourselves our best chance of doing really well in the event.”

Among the 36 teams here, defending champions South Korea are fielding a completely different team – Oh Soo-min, Park Seo-jin and Sung A-jin.

Oh, 17, won five World Amateur Golf Ranking events in 2024 and claimed an 11-stroke victory at the 2025 Queen Sirikit Cup, also known as the Amateur Ladies Asia-Pacific Invitational Golf Team Championship.

When asked if they would replicate their 2023 victory, South Korea’s high-performance director Ko Sang-won said: “Actually, we don’t have to. All three girls, they don’t have any pressure, even though we are here as defending champions.

“They were not there in (Abu Dhabi), so they are also like the underdogs. As a defending team, they are all newbies.

“So I keep telling them that they have done enough and to go out there and enjoy the game.”

Among the big names who have competed in the Espirito Santo Trophy and gone on to become professionals include New Zealand’s world No. 3 Lydia Ko, Australia’s fourth-ranked Minjee Lee and 31st-ranked American Lilia Vu.

The men’s Eisenhower Trophy will tee off on Oct 8, with Brayden Lee, Troy Storm and Hiroshi Tai representing Singapore.

After this tournament, the Singaporeans will compete at the South-east Asia Amateur Team Championship in the Philippines in November as their final stop before the SEA Games.