Masters champion Vijay Singh, major winners Seve Ballesteros and John Daly and the 1999 and 2000 champions, Gerry Norquist and Yeh Wei-tze, will all converge on Saujana Golf and Country Club, Kuala Lumpur, this week for the Carlsberg Malaysian Open.
The course, known locally as the 'Cobra' in view of the way it snakes through an historic oil palm plantation, is sure to test the best as it did in the first tournament co-sanctioned between the European and Asian PGA Tours two years ago.
On that occasion Norquist gained exemption on to the European Tour by edging out fellow American Bob May at Saujana, while last season it was Yeh who emulated Norquist at Templer Park Golf and Country Club by beating Padraig Harrington and Des Terblanche.
Singh, who defends his Masters title at Augusta National in April, returns to the country where he captured the Malaysian Open in 1992. Michael Campbell, Padraig Harrington and Costantino Rocca are also competing this week.
Daly, winner of the 1991 US PGA Championship and the 1995 Open Championship at St. Andrews, makes a rare stop in Asia for the Carlsberg Malaysian Open at a venue where Europe's Number One, Lee Westwood, triumphed then lost in a play-off.
Westwood won the 1997 edition of the tournament but was defeated in a play-off the following season by American-based Englishman, Ed Fryatt. The 1994 champion, Joakim Haeggman from Sweden, attempts to win the event for a second time.
Westwood, although not entered this week, knows the difficulties associated with a course which was opened in 1986 and hosted the Malaysian Open for the first time two years later.
"It's mental as much as anything", observed the Englishman, who won the Volvo Order of Merit in 2000. "The conditions are usually incredibly humid and the key is to keep your concentration and stay hydrated.
"The Europeans in the field are not as accustomed to the steamy conditions they experience in Malaysia and it's a case of using every ounce of stamina and endurance on a course which is particularly undulating."
Saujana was designed by Ronald Fream and is one of the top-rated venues around Kuala Lumpur. The Cobra - or to give it its Sunday name, the Palm Course - is both testing and challenging. It winds its way through hilly terrain, lined all the way by tall imposing palm trees.
