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Takudzwa Chitsiga Sports Reporter
UPCOMING Zimbabwean professional golfer Sean Crocker will fly the country’s flag when he takes to the field in the $1 million, 2018 SMBC Singapore Open at the Serapong Course, Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore tomorrow. The United States-based player returns to the field after turning professional recently and will try his luck in the Asian Tour. The 20-year-old rising star will have an opportunity to test himself against some of the finest professional golfers on the Asian Tour with the field boasting top professionals like Asian Tour number one Gavin Green as well as world number 16 Pat Perez.

Crocker will tee off at 13.40pm together with Konosuke Nakazato of Japan and Philippines’ Quincy Quek. Crocker, a three-time All-American and 2015 US Amateur Championship semi-finalist, left the University of Southern California in his junior year to focus on his game full-time. SMBC Singapore Open returned on the schedule after they secured a three-year title sponsorship deal with the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC).

SMBC was established in April 2001 through the merger of two leading banks The Sakura Bank, Limited and The Sumitomo Bank, Limited. SMBC, as a core member of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG), works together with other members of the Group to offer customers highly sophisticated, comprehensive financial services throughout the Asia Pacific region.

In 2016, the tournament also became a jointly-sanctioned event between the Asian Tour and the Japan Golf Tour Organisation. From 2009 to 2012, the Asian Tour had jointly-sanctioned it with the European Tour. In 2012, Italian teenager Matteo Manassero captured the most important title of his career with a play-off victory over South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen.

Crocker will be the only local at the tournament in his first competitive 2018 tournament after he brought the curtain down on his glittering amateur career at the Omega European Masters at Golf-Club Crans-sur-Sierre in Switzerland’s south western city of Valais from September 7 to 11 last year.