Padraig Harrington claims he will have to produce some of his very best golf to defend his Iskandar Johor Open title this week.
Dubliner feels he will need top form to retain his title
Padraig Harrington feels he will have to produce some of his very best golf to defend his Iskandar Johor Open title in Malaysia this week.
Harrington ended a two-year wait for a title 12 months ago with a three-shot victory at Horizon Hills Golf and Country Club in Johor Bahru when the tournament was part of the Asian Tour.
Now co-sanctioned for the first time with the European Tour, Harrington will have to fend off competition from Henrik Stenson, Camilo Villegas, Anthony Kim and Louis Oosthuizen among others to return to the winner's circle.
That will be no easy task according to the Irishman, who goes into the event on the back of a missed cut at last week's Singapore Open.
"There are 156 guys here this week, and most - if not all - of them are very good players," stated the three-time major winner. "So you're going to have to play very well and hole a lot of putts to win the tournament.
"It's very hard to predict who's going to win a golf tournament these days because pretty much every player in the field is quite capable on their day.
"So it's always better to focus on your own game rather than on anyone else. All you can do is just give it your best shot and see where it takes you."
Tougher conditions
Harrington, though, expects to take on a much different Horizon Hills course from a year ago, where he triumphed with a winning score of 20-under-par.
"It's always nice to come back to a golf course where you've won before," he continued. "It obviously comes with certain expectations, and hopefully I can live up to them this week.
"The course is very different to the one we played last year. A few of the holes have been lengthened, the rough's much heavier and the fairways are very soft, whereas they were pretty firm last year.
"So whilst we were getting 30 to 40 yards of run here last year, you probably won't be getting any this year. So it'll be interesting to see how it affects the scoring - I certainly don't think the winning score will be as low as last year's."
Oosthuizen, meanwhile, is keen to build on his encouraging recent form having tied for third in Singapore last week.
"Last week in Singapore was good," the 2010 Open champion said. "I've been playing pretty well for a while now, and whilst it was obviously disappointing not to get the win, I was still very happy with how I hit the ball last week - especially on the second and third days.
"I haven't played this course before, but I would imagine it'll be a fairly similar test to last week.
"I played nine holes this morning and the greens were very good - you wouldn't have guessed they had had so much rain here lately. So I'm really looking forward to the week."
Stenson fighting illness
Stenson arrived in Malaysia battling illness, but the 35-year-old Swede is still hopeful of ending a four-year title drought on the European Tour.
"I'm not feeling too energetic at the moment, but hopefully I'll get better as the week goes on," he said.
"I've liked what I've seen of the course so far - there are a lot of risk/reward holes, and it's very well-bunkered.
"My game's coming along, and I'm hitting the ball better all the time. Even though I missed the cut last week, I didn't play that badly - I just didn't take my chances on the greens.
"Hopefully that changes this week, because it's my last event of the year so it'd be good to sign off the season with a decent performance."
