OOSTHUIZEN SWITCHES MINDSET AHEAD OF ISPS HANDA WORLD SUPER 6 PERTH

Ranked 25^th in the world, the 2010 Open Championship winner, who finished third in the United States last week, is excited about playing his way into Sunday’s round which will feature a revolutionary knockout matchplay format.

Oosthuizen has emerged victorious at Lake Karrinyup Country Club last year and will be banking on those winning memories to lead him towards another grandstand finish at the AUS$1.75 million event that is tri-sanctioned by the Asian Tour, the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia and European Tour.

Like Oosthuizen, Denmark’s Thorbjorn Olesen is also hoping for more success down under having won the ISPS HANDA Perth International at Lake Karrinyup Country Club in 2014 and the World Cup of Golf for Denmark in Melbourne last year.

Bangladeshi Siddikur Rahman, who finished second on home soil a fortnight ago, is excited about extending his proud matchplay record having proven himself during his amateur days as well as at the inaugural EurAsia Cup in 2014. Meanwhile unlike Siddikur, Australia’s Sam Brazel, who has no matchplay experience, believes he can still excel at home given his good form ever since his breakthrough in Hong Kong last year.

Interesting facts of the day:

• Louis Oosthuizen is a past winner at the Lake Karrinyup Country Club, having won the ISPS HANDA Perth International by one-shot last year.

• Siddikur Rahman has a good track record at matchplay events which dates back to his amateur days when he won the 2004 Indian Amateur.

• Siddikur represented Team Asia at the inaugural EurAsia Cup in 2014. He combined effectively with India’s Anirban Lahiri to defeat Victor Dubuisson and Joost Luiten by one hole at the Foursomes and also defeated Scotland’s Stephen Gallacher 4&3 in the Final day singles then.

• Siddikur was denied his third Asian Tour win at his National Open a fortnight ago. He settled for second place, four shots behind Thailand’s Jazz Janewattananond.

 

• Thorbjorn Olesen created history with partner Soren Kjeldsen when they claimed Denmark’s first win in the World Cup of Golf in November 2016.

 

• Sam Brazel is coming off a tied-12 finish in Malaysia last week and is currently in 19^th place on the Asian Tour Order of Merit.

 

Key Quotes 

 

Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa)

I think it's a mindset thing where you've got to realize that the stroke play is just to get you to qualify for Sunday.  You can have a five shot lead and lose your first round in match play and off home you go.  So it's definitely the mindset I've got that it's just to qualify to get to Sunday and then see what that presents. It would definitely be nice to have a good weekend here. I think the tough part is knowing you're not going to have 18 holes in the match play, you only have six.  So it's going to be like teeing off at the 13th elsewhere in the match, and that's also sort of where you've got to look at.

 

Thorbjorn Olesen (Den)

In golf you can never look ahead.  If you start doing that you get in trouble, so it's obviously exciting and I really want to be there on Sunday, but I have to keep focusing on tomorrow's round and then after that Friday's round and hopefully have a few more good rounds. I feel like I have a little advantage because I won here and I know the course very well and I love it here, so that makes it easier to play well when you enjoy being here.  You have to be mentally ready, that's for sure, and I think you have to be aggressive in match play.  And obviously you have to play your opponent but also concentrate about your own game.  It's all about making putts, I think that's the key thing in match play and that's what you have to do.

 

Siddikur Rahman (Ban)

I’m so happy to be here again after having my visa sorted at the very last minute. I’ve been playing very well coming into this week’s tournament and I’m looking for a win now. I’m very good in matchplay so I was really excited when I heard this event will be adopting a new matchplay format. I tend to play well in matchplay events and my coach has also told me that’s where my strength lies.

 

Sam Brazel (Aus)

It’s great to be home as I’ve always like coming back to Australia. I look forward to playing here in Perth and I’m sure it’s going to be a great spectacle for the crowd. Hopefully they get behind it and come out to watch as the format’s going to be pretty exciting. The format will put lots of pressure on the players and obviously we want to get off to a good start with only six holes and the first couple of holes in each match will be really important. I’ve not been involved in any matchplay events so this will be something new for me. Life has been very busy for me since Hong Kong. But I’m loving it as it has been great fun so far. It’s exciting times.