Another thrilling season of the World Amateur Inter Team Golf Championship (WAITGC) concludes this week with the grand final at the resplendent Tanjong Puteri Golf Resort in Johor Bahru from November 3-5.

Dubbed the “Best Golfing Experience in South Malaysia” and recently ranked top five in the country by regional golf publication Asian Golf Monthly, Tanjong Puteri is a fitting venue for the grand final.

The 6,454-metre, par-72 championship course, the Plantation where the finalists will battle it out for the top honours, was designed by the internationally acclaimed architect, Max Wexler. The course, opened for play in November 2002, was once a thriving oil palm plantation with living quarters for workers now transformed into beautiful sprawling greens.

This is the 16th season of the evergreen amateur golf circuit, billed as the only one in the world run by a country’s Tourism board. A total of 161 teams took part in the six qualifying rounds with the top three gross and top two nett teams at each leg qualifying for the all-expenses paid Grand Final this week.

With two additional teams (the best two from the qualifying rounds who did not qualify) invited to participate, a total of 32 teams will battle it out in the grand final. Australia is strongly represented with ten teams followed by Brunei with seven teams, Malaysia with six and Indonesia with three teams.

Other countries in the final, with one team each are Singapore, India, Pakistan, United States of America, Japan and Thailand.

As WAITGC is planned to showcase the best of Malaysian golf to the world, international and local media personnel are invited to the Grand Final. 25 local media and 24 international media that comprises of reporters and journalists from United Arab Emirates (3), Japan (3), India (4), Hong Kong (4), Thailand (2), Indonesia (3), Brunei (2), Singapore (2) and Australia (1).

Popularly known with the acronym WAITGC (wai-tag), this Tourism Malaysia’s initiated event is an internationally acclaimed golfing extravaganza. Despite the economic slowdown and the H1N1 influenza threat, the circuit still managed to attract 644 players this year. (Please refer to player’s statistic attached)

To golfers, the tournament is not only a gateway for them to compete against golfers from other countries, testing their talent and skills conquering some of the best fairways and greens the country has to offer but it is also a perfect holiday package, where they will also have the opportunities to visit some of the country’s tourist attractions.

WAITGC is played in Strokeplay gross format for the gross category and Stableford format in the Nett category. At each of the preliminary round, the top three teams in gross and the top two teams in nett category qualify for the all-expense paid Grand Final.

This year’s WAITGC features Samsung and Jebsen & Jessen as main sponsors, supported by Etiqa, Setanding Enterprise, Emirates, Crest Link, 100PLUS, Spritzer, Wata Time – Jaguar, TaylorMade-adidas Golf and QiSoft Technologies while TeeTimes is the official media partner.

The World Amateur Inter Team Golf Championship is organised in collaboration with the Golf Club Managers Association of Malaysia (GCMAM) and sanctioned by the Malaysian Golf Association.

For more details and inquiries, please contact:
Mr. Sulaiman Suip
Deputy Director, Industry Development Division, Tourism Malaysia
Tel: 03-2614 8765
H/P: 012-832 5718 / 019-668 5547
Email: sulaiman@tourism.gov.my

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Issued by: Communications & Publicity Division, Tourism Malaysia
Date: 05 November 2009
For more information, kindly contact Mazita Johari at 03-2615 8442
or email: mazita@tourism.gov.my