New Delhi: A fired-up Scott Barr of Australia tees up at the SAIL-SBI Open presented by Incredible India, Ministry of Tourism on Wednesday with the aim of laying to rest the ghost of Delhi Golf Club.<\/p>\n
Barr came agonizingly close to a maiden Asian Tour title at last year\u2019s event when he led by one shot with two holes remaining but his hopes ran aground with a costly triple bogey six on the penultimate par three hole.<\/p>\n
The Singapore-based Australian eventually ended one shot shy of the play-off duo of Anirban Lahiri of India and Thailand\u2019s Prom Meesawat. Lahiri subsequently won the title in extra time and will defend at the venerable Delhi course against a top line-up from the Asian Tour.<\/p>\n
Multiple winners Gaganjeet Bhullar of India, Sweden\u2019s Rikard Karlberg, who has won twice in India previously, and Zaykabar Myanmar Open champion Chawalit Plaphol of Thailand will be amongst the leading stars as the Asian Tour continues its milestone 10th season celebration after establishing itself as a players\u2019 organisation in 2004.<\/p>\n
Local stars Shiv Kapur and Jyoti Randhawa, along with 25 of the top-61 players from the final 2012 Order of Merit, will also feature in the US$300,000 SAIL-SBI Open, which is celebrating its sixth edition and is one of four Asian Tour tournaments staged in India.<\/p>\n
Barr is determined to take another crack at the title. \u201cI played really well at the SAIL-SBI Open last year. Obviously, I\u2019m going there again with the intention to play to my best ability, which I hope is good enough to put me in contention,\u201d said Barr, who finished 21st on the Merit list last season.<\/p>\n
The Aussie knows the tree-lined Delhi course will punish the slightest of errant shots, as he discovered with such agony last year. \u201cI played pretty good the whole week but hit only one loose shot. We all know the Delhi Golf Club can tear you to pieces if you hit your ball a bit off line. Unfortunately that happened to me. I just hit one bad shot and was out of contention,\u201d recalled the 40-year-old Barr.<\/p>\n
\u201cI changed quite a bit in my game this season \u2013 the way I\u2019m swinging it, the putting style and the putter. I\u2019ve been putting in quite an effort so hopefully it starts to pay off.\u201d<\/p>\n
American Ben Fox is also eager to launch a title run at the SAIL-SBI Open. Last season, he started his 2012 campaign with five straight top-10s, including a fourth place finish at the SAIL-SBI Open and earned the nickname \u201cBen 10\u201d after the cartoon character.<\/p>\n
However, the slightly-built Fox fell off the radar in the second half of the season after failing to adjust to changes made in his golf swing during the middle of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is always a fun place to get back to. I\u2019ve been struggling with the game in the last five or six months but the game is starting to get a little better. I\u2019ll try to get comfortable on a course that I\u2019ve played well in the past. Hopefully I can get some momentum and get back into the swing of things,\u201d said the 25-year-old American.<\/p>\n
He is hopeful of regaining his \u201cA\u201d game despite missing the cut in the season-opening event in Myanmar two weeks ago. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m starting to move in the right direction. My goal is to keep getting better and more comfortable and be contending week-to-week like early last year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the summer of last year, I went for some swing changes. It didn\u2019t quite come together and I got into a bad groove. It was unfortunate because I had such a good start. I feel like I\u2019ve taken the good and learned from it, so hopefully I can get back into contention and play the way which I should be playing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi: A fired-up Scott Barr of Australia tees up at the SAIL-SBI Open presented by Incredible India, Ministry of Tourism on Wednesday with the aim of laying to rest the ghost of Delhi Golf Club.<\/p>\n
Barr came agonizingly close to a maiden Asian Tour title at last year\u2019s event when he led by one shot with two holes remaining but his hopes ran aground with a costly triple bogey six on the penultimate par three hole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-isn-front-stories"],"yoast_head":"\n