Jeev eyes second Barclays Singapore Open title

Wed, Nov 10 10 06:51 PM

Singapore, Nov 10 (PTI) Ace Indian golfer Jeev Milkha Singh is happy to be back at the Sentosa Golf Club and is optimistic of winning his second title at the Barclays Singapore Open, starting here tomorrow. "I have a great feeling coming back especially to a place where you won before. Obviously you get the positive vibes again. I love the golf course, it is a fantastic set up and Singapore is a great country and hopefully I''ll have a good tournament again," said Jeev. The Chandigarh Pro won the Singapore Open in 2008, beating Major winners Ernie Els of South Africa and Ireland''s Padraig Harrington but he could not participate in the event last year because of clash of dates. "It was a great win and I feel it was one of the biggest wins in my career. It was a strong field and the golf course was very challenging with the rough up and the greens were in excellent conditions," he said. "In 2008, my best memory was on the 18th hole when I got lucky when Ernie (Els) missed his putt and I made par on the last two holes to win by one shot. I think the golfing Gods were really looking after me. "It was tough a tough decision (to skip the tournament last year) because the World Match Play was on that week and I had to make the call whether to come here or go there. "I decided to go there reason being because it was the World Match Play but it was a tough decision because when you win a tournament, you want to go back there and defend the title. But I''m back here now," he added. Jeev, a two-time Asian Tour Order of Merit champion, had to battle a shoulder injury this year and could make just one top-10 finish in 17 starts on the PGA Tour. "The injury is not 100 per cent cured. I''m still on painkillers but I got another four weeks left and I''ll take six weeks off. I''ll take that time to recover and prepare for Abu Dhabi," he said. Elaborating about his injury, Jeev said, "I got injured in Dubai when I was hitting a shot in the rough and after that I kept playing with the injury and that''s the worst thing to do. The other mistake was that I came back too early. "I took two months off but the best doctor is your body that tells you that you need to take it easy and not to return too early. I also didn''t do the right things which I was suppose to do. "It became much better by August but things keep coming up. Sometimes there''s a lot of pain but it is just a hit-and-run case," he added. Jeev said there is still a lot of inflammation around the injured place. "It is in the rotator cuff. There''s a lot of inflammation in there and there''s not a lot blood circulation in there and they say that you need to take time off and let the body do the work," he said.

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