Don’t change a winning formula” is a proverb that is not being strictly adhered to by the Indonesian team for this year’s PGM-IGT Championship. The team that will compete on 1-3 August at Tiara Melaka Golf & Country Club, Melaka, Malaysia, has undergone some changes in composition from last year’s team who won on home soil.
The IGT team captain, Jubilant “Teddy” Arda, has chosen to retain seven players out of the 12 who made up the winning team last year. He’s released Clement Kurniawan, Ian Andrew, Joshua Andrew Wirawan, Rory Hie, and Danny Masrin. The absence of Danny's name in the squad list that will visit Malaysia is one that is quite surprising.
“I had to remove Danny from the IGT team member because he has other schedules that couldn't be left behind. This is pretty unfortunate, but we have to move on with this condition,” said Teddy. In the absence of those players, Teddy has selected five new players who have improved their performance over the last six months.
Surprisingly, four of the new players are amateurs - Naraajie E. Ramadhan P., Jonathan Wijono, Kevin C. Akbar, and Almay Rayhan. “[The amateurs] are increasing rapidly. Their skills are formed on the IGT, it is a great way for professionals and amateurs to hone their games and talents through a professional circuit in Indonesia. Therefore, we invited them to join the IGT team,” said Jimmy Masrin, Chairman of the Indonesian Golf Tour.
These four players are also taking part in the 2018 Asian Games and have already proven that they are able to compete with Indonesian professionals. At the 5th Series of the IGT in June, they all placed in the Top 5 of the leaderboard with Danny Masrin being the only professional to join them, taking 3rd.
