SEA Games 31: Arsit Areephun tied course record of Heron Lake

Although the weather was forecasted to be rainy today at Dam Vac golf course, it is still very favorable to the athletes. The lack of heavy sunlight and cool breezes helped most players to get better results than on the first day of competition.

Unfortunately, the leading golfer in the previous round, Weerawish Narkprachar was down on his luck today. Everything seemed to go smoothly in the first 5 holes when he scored 3 birdies and was on the top of the leader board. However, to everyone surprise, he got bogey on hole 7^th - 9^th and double bogey on hole 10^th. The birdie on hole 14^th only helped Narkprachar an even par in this round and dropped to 2nd place in the rankings with 4 under par.

Ervin Chang excelled in round 2 and is in the top of the medal competition.

Due to Narkprachar’s fall in performance, the Maylaysian golfer, Ervin Chang wasted no time to surpass him. Chang is one of the two most prominent male golfers of the Malaysian team at this 31^st SEA Games. After finishing round 1 with a score of 73, Ervin Chang was one of the 2 best players in round 2, he had 5 birdies and only 1 bogey to close the day with 5 under par. At some points in the competition, Ervin Chang even rose to the top of the rankings, but that position kept changing as a result of a strong routine from Arsit Areephun.

Arsit Areephun had a breakthrough and rose to the top.

Before the 31^st SEA Games took place, it was not the world number 6 golfer - Ratchanon Chantanuwat but Arsit Areephun that was the name that coach Preecha Senaprom expected to bring home the gold medal in the male’s individual event for Thailand. World No. 770 golfer is the winner of the 31^st SEA Games qualifiers and is considered by the coaching staff to be Thailand's best golfer at the moment.

After an unsatisfactory first round with a 72, Arsit Areephun showed off his actual ability on the second day of competition when he scored a 66 with no bogey (6 under par). Finishing the first 9 holes with only 1 birdie on the 6^th hole, but in the next 9 holes, Arsit started to warmed up. The golfer born in 2003 scored 3 birdies in a row from hole 12^th-14^th and 2 consecutive birdies at hole 16^th-17^th, therefore dominating the leading position with 6 under par.

This result not only helped Arsit Areephun to rise to the top of the competition for the gold medal, but he also balanced out the 18-hole score record of Dam Vac course set by Nicklaus Chiam at the 2019 Putra Cup. Espeacially, after setting said record, Chiam also won the gold medal in that tournament.

With 1 day left for the individual event, it’s not easy to predict the owner of the 3 medals, particularly after unpredictable developments in the first 2 days. And the Vietnamese team hasn’t run out of opportunities after Nguyen Anh Minh performed well in the 2^nd round and ranked at 4^th place with 3 under par, only 3 strokes worse than the leader. Meanwhile, Le Khanh Hung with 1 under par could also have the chance to break into the Top 3.