KUALA LUMPUR: Thailand's Nirun Sae-Ueng was handed a coveted golden ticket to the 2020 Maybank Championship after he emerged as the winner of the PGM Maybank ADT Championship last month.
Joining Nirun will be his compatriots Atiruj Winaicharoenchai and Suttijet Kooratanapisan, who also secured slots for the tournament.
This year marked the first time that the PGM Maybank ADT Championship, co-sanctioned by the Professional Golf of Malaysia (PGM) Tour and the Asian Development Tour (ADT), served as the qualifying event for the Asean category spots for the lucrative Maybank Championship.
The players received spots at the Asian Tour and European Tour co-sanctioned tournament after finishing as the top five Asean players as well as the winner at the PGM Maybank ADT Championship.
Rounding up the Asean qualifying group are Singapore's Choo Tze Huang and Quincy Quek and Indonesian George Gandranata.
Speaking after his first hole play-off win over Gavin Green at the PGM Maybank ADT Championship, Nirun said: "I came here with one mission -- to qualify for the Maybank Championship, so to get that and finish on top today was amazing. It has always been a dream of mine to play at the Maybank Championship."
Third round leader Atiruj, who finished in third place, said: "I am disappointed that I didn't win but that is okay because I also qualified for the Maybank event and that was my goal when I came here."
With a US$3 million purse, the Maybank Championship is now the biggest and most lucrative golf tournament in Asean whose past winners include Australians Marcus Fraser (2016) and Scott Hend (2019), Paraguay's Fabrizio Zanotti (2017) and India's Shubhankar Sharma (2018).
The Asean category, introduced in 2017 as part of Maybank's initiatives and efforts to elevate regional talent, provides a platform for the players to take their game to a new level.