Staff WriterThe Singapore Open began on Thursday in the sort of heat that makes a golf glove feel like a wet flannel, yet Thailand’s Ekpharit Wu and Korea’s Jeongwoo Ham treated The Serapong at Sentosa Golf Club as though it were a pleasant evening knock. Both men opened with sparkling seven-under-par 64s to seize a two-shot lead in the US$2 million showpiece and turn up the temperature on everyone else.
There was nothing soft about the scoring, and nothing forgiving about the air. Competitors in the 57th staging of Singapore’s National Open were met by conditions better suited to a steam room than a championship course. Even so, Wu and Ham were clinical, calm and thoroughly unmoved by the tropical mugging.
Behind them, Charles Porter of the United States, Zimbabwe’s Kieran Vincent and the Philippines’ Aidric Chan signed for 66s to sit two back, while a sizeable and dangerous chasing pack lurked on 67, including 2024 Asian Tour Order of Merit champion John Catlin, Australians Will Florimo and Kevin Yuan, Japan’s Tomohiro Ishizaka and Ryosuke Kinoshita, Spain’s Luis Masaveu and India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar.
Wu stays cool while Sentosa boils
Wu, making his first appearance in the Singapore Open, played as though he had seen this film before. Starting on the back nine, he went out in five under and never put a foot wrong, carding seven birdies in a bogey-free round that had the tidy efficiency of a man who had made peace with both the course and the weather before the starter had even spoken.
He helped himself to three straight birdies from the 14th, settled into the day early and never allowed it to wobble. That is no small feat on The Serapong, which has a habit of rewarding conviction and exposing hesitation.
Wu’s rise has gathered pace over the last year. He won his first Asian Tour title at the Taiwan Glass Taifong Open in 2025, a result that carried personal weight given his family ties to Chinese-Taipei, and he has already shown he is comfortable when momentum begins to build.
A large part of that steadiness, by his own telling, comes from the woman carrying the bag.
“It’s been a very rewarding partnership. She being by my side makes me more confident on the course,” he said.
“She helps me not to get angry on the golf course. When on the course, we always hit some bad shots but it’s about not getting too emotional and she helps me a lot with that.
“When I was an amateur I used local caddies, but when I turned professional I spoke with her and she became my caddie straight away, no question.”
There is something wonderfully simple about that arrangement. Golfers spend fortunes trying to find calm. Wu appears to have married his.
Ham shrugs off an early mistake
Ham’s 64 took a slightly different route, though it arrived at the same destination. He opened with a bogey at the 10th, which is not usually the ideal way to start a round in this company, but responded with eight birdies and only one dropped shot all day.
Three in a row from the 18th gave his scorecard real momentum, and from there he looked every inch a player who was not especially bothered by the course, the heat or the occasion. Ham mainly competes on the Korean PGA Tour and has played only a limited number of Asian Tour events, but there was nothing tentative about this performance.
If Wu’s round was a study in control, Ham’s was a demonstration of recovery. An early bruise, then a full-blooded reply.
Porter brings power, Chan brings magic
Porter, meanwhile, arrived with a reputation and then went out and confirmed it. The 6-foot-9 American was second in driving distance on the Asian Tour last year, averaging 323.68 yards in his rookie campaign, and there were a couple of reminders on Thursday that he is not exactly dealing in half-measures.
“I hit a couple of big drives — over 350 yards on both 7 and 18 — which gave me short irons into the par fives, and I was able to make birdie on both,” he said.
“I also holed a really nice putt on nine. The driving iron wasn’t great today, but if the driver’s working, you can take that.
“I don’t really remember my bogeys, to be honest — I just remember the good shots. We had a great group out there, which always helps, and I was fuelling up with chicken burgers all day.”
That is the sort of quote golf needs more often: honest, slightly chaotic and entirely human.
Vincent and Chan joined Porter at 66, though Chan produced the moment of the day with an eagle at the par-five 18th after burying a 70-footer. That sort of thing tends to wake up a leaderboard in a hurry.
Catlin stalks with the patience of a man who knows
Catlin’s 67 had a different flavour again. There were no fireworks, no grand gestures, just the sort of composed, no-fuss golf that tends to become very relevant by Sunday afternoon. The six-time Asian Tour winner did not lift a title in 2025, a strange omission for a player of his pedigree, and he was not shy about what still drives him.
“It’s huge! I mean, that’s why I put in all the work I do. That’s why I practice all the hours and put myself in that position, because I want to have that last putt on Sunday to win.”
His round was bogey-free, which becomes even more impressive when you learn he found water off the tee on the par-five 18th and still walked away with par.
“You know, I really only got in trouble once and drove it in the water on 18. I was still able to make a five,” he said.
“Just very steady Eddie. A lot of good golf shots. Yeah, was in position a lot, had a lot of birdie chances. A few times I was out of position, or I missed a green, I was in the right position and got up and down. So, it’s just, you know, a pretty steady Eddie round.”
It was exactly that. No drama, no panic, and no need to chase too hard on day one.
Why this Singapore Open matters beyond the leaderboard
This Singapore Open is not merely another stop on the calendar. It is the fourth event of the Asian Tour season and the second leg of The International Series, the elevated run of tournaments offering a route toward the LIV Golf League. In other words, there is money here, prestige here and a future here.
There is also a direct road to Royal Birkdale. The event forms part of the Open Qualifying Series, with the top two eligible players not already exempt booking places for this summer’s Open Championship. That adds a certain sharpness to every birdie and every loose swing, because players are not only climbing a leaderboard, they are chasing one of golf’s grander invitations.
So the first day at Sentosa felt significant for more than one reason. Wu and Ham were the names at the top, but the larger story was the tone they set. This Singapore Open is already moving at a brisk clip, played in air thick enough to chew and with stakes high enough to matter.
That usually makes for a long week.
And on this evidence, a very good one.
