The Asian Tour kicks off this Thursday with a Spaniard in its ranks. It is Eduard Rousaud who will make his debut this week after securing his card at the Qualifying School last December. The golfer from Barcelona will debut his Asian card in a tournament with a huge history that returns to the circuit ten years later.
Specifically, the event that raises the curtain on the Asian Tour is the Smart Infinity Philippine Open, a competition that hasn’t been held since 2019 and hasn’t been on the Asian circuit calendar since 2015. It is a much-anticipated return of one of the oldest national opens in the world. The first edition of the Philippine Open was held in 1913.
The tournament takes place on the Masters course at the Manila Southwoods Golf and Country Club, a venue that hosted this competition in 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1999. The last champion on this course was a familiar face from the DP World Tour, the American of Asian descent Anthony Kang.
Rousaud has the exciting mission of becoming the first Spaniard to win this historic tournament. In fact, he could also be the third European ever, after the Scotsman Ian Collier Trotter MacGregor, who won it twice in its early days, and the Englishman Steve Lewton, champion in 2017, when the tournament counted only for the Philippine Tour.
It will be Rousaud’s second tournament on the Asian Tour after the Saudi International in 2022, as well as his return to the top division of world circuits three years later, following the Catalunya Championship in 2022. He plays in the afternoon on Thursday and in the morning on Friday.
Pep Anglés plays in Malaysia on the Asian Development Tour
Meanwhile, Pep Anglés is also in Asian lands. In his case, he is in Malaysia to play the PKNS Selangor Masters, a tournament on the Asian Development Tour, Asia’s second division, which has been taking place since this Wednesday at the Seri Selangor Golf Club. The first round could not be completed due to lack of light, although Anglés did finish with a round of -1 and is in the upper part of the leaderboard, three strokes off the provisional lead.
