Mark Brown, The European Tour’s newest champion, will attempt to follow in the footsteps of World Number One Tiger Woods when he lines up in the field for this week's Maybank Malaysian Open at the Kota Permai Golf and Country Club in Kuala Lumpur.
To date in 2008, Woods is the only player in world golf to have won three tournaments in a row – the Buick Invitational, the Dubai Desert Classic and the WGC - Accenture Match Play – and now Brown has the opportunity to match the feat in the Malaysian capital after an extraordinary two weeks.
A fortnight ago, the previously unheralded New Zealander captured his maiden title on the Asian Tour when he won the Sail Open Golf Championship at Jaypee Greens, and followed that up with his first European Tour victory last Sunday with a sensational showing in New Delhi to claim the Johnnie Walker Classic.
Such a meteoric rise has helped propel the 33 year old from 322nd in the Official World Ranking at the start of the year to his current position of 64th, making him the highest placed New Zealand golfer on the list. All a far cry from five years ago when he toyed with the idea of packing in the professional game altogether.
“My golfing career has been mostly down but thankfully it is now on the way up, especially these last two weeks,” he said. “In the same way as I approached the Johnnie Walker Classic, it is important to get my feet back down to earth and play well in the upcoming tournaments which is what I’ll be attempting to do in Malaysia.”
Although his focus will be firmly on the challenge in front of him at the Kota Permai Golf and Country Club, Brown will, understandably, take a moment to reflect on his late father who was the driving force behind his success.
“He was always so supportive of my golf in a quiet way,” he said. “He didn’t come and watch me play all that often but when I told him I was thinking about giving up in 2003, you could tell he was pretty disappointed.
“He always believed in me and believed that if you tried long and hard enough you will succeed. I didn’t quite hear what he was saying at the time but I do now.”
Although much of the media attention will focus on Brown in Kuala Lumpur, a strong supporting cast has assembled in the co-sanctioned event with the Asian Tour in an attempt to stop him rewriting the history books in this, the tenth anniversary staging of the tournament.
Leading the way is his fellow New Zealander, the 2005 US Open Champion Michael Campbell, along with Northern Irishmen Darren Clarke and Rory McIlroy, England’s Nick Dougherty and David Howell, and defending champion Peter Hedblom.
The Swede emerged as the champion across Kuala Lumpur at Saujana Golf and Country Club 12 months ago, ending an 11 year wait for his second European Tour title. Now the 37 year old will attempt to become only the second player in the tournament’s history – following Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee in 2004 and 2005 – to win the title in consecutive seasons.
