Padraig Harrington of Ireland hits his second shot on the 13th hole during the first round of The Barclays at Ridgewood Country Club on August 21, 2008 in Paramus, New Jersey. He will be making his first appearance in Singapore at the Barclays Singapore Open. (Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images, provided by organisers)
Singapore, October 6, 2008 – Back-to-back Major winner and crowd favourite Padraig Harrington will make his debut appearance in the US$5 million Barclays Singapore Open in November, organisers confirmed.
The 37-year-old Irishman followed up the successful defence of his British Open title in July with a historic victory in the US PGA Championship, career-shaping achievements that won him fulsome praise from his peers and catapulted him to number four in the world rankings.
"The calibre of the field competing in the Barclays Singapore Open is testament again to the event's high profile, and with crowd favourite Padraig Harrington teeing off for the first time in the tournament, we can look forward to an even more exciting event this year," said Robert Morrice, Chairman and Chief Executive of Barclays Asia. ÂÂ
Although Harrington will be teeing off in the Barclays Singapore Open at Sentosa Golf Club for the first time, he has a reputation as an Asian specialist.
He won the 2003 Asian Open, the Hong Kong Open the following year and the Dunlop Phoenix on the Japan Golf Tour in 2006. He has also competed several times in the Malaysian Open and lost to Fiji's Vijay Singh in a playoff in 2001.
Harrington will be joined in the field for Asia's richest National Open from November 13-16 by three greats of the game, three-time Major winner Phil Mickelson from America, double Singapore Open winner Adam Scott of Australia and world number seven Ernie Els of South Africa, the runner-up in 2006.
The Barclays Singapore Open is a full-field event on the Asian Tour and since it rejoined the schedule in 2005 with a multi-million dollar prize fund it has quickly established itself as one of the biggest and best tournaments in the region.
A huge final-day gallery witnessed a thrilling duel between Angel Cabrera of Argentina and Vijay Singh with the Argentinean sealing the title with a one-over-par 72 for an eight-under-par 276 winning total.
With Padraig Harrington adding his name to the tournament and raising the bar, we are very excited to have yet another world-class player make his mark on Sentosa's Serapong in November. We are just weeks away from watching the world's best at their best on one of Asia's toughest courses," said Peter Downie, Director of Golf, Sentosa Golf Club.
Harrington will arrive at Sentosa Golf Club with the confident air of a player who has won three of the last six Major titles.
The Irishman's four-shot victory in this year's British Open at Royal Birkdale, where he engaged in an absorbing contest with golden oldie Greg Norman, and the PGA Championship win resulted in a major re-write of the record books.
His two-shot win over Spain's Sergio Garcia and Ben Curtis of the United States at Oakland Hills saw him become only the fourth player to win the British Open and the PGA Championship in the same year.
He joined Tiger Woods (2000 and 2006), Nick Price (1994) and Walter Hagen (1924) as the only players to lift the British Open and PGA titles back to back, and became the first European ever to win consecutive Majors, halting a 78-year wait for a European winner at the PGA Championship.
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