The UUM International School Melaka (UUMISM) on February 24, 2020 signed an agreement to be the title sponsor for the SportExcel Malaysian Junior Golf Tour for two years, worth RM100,000 annually.
Signing on behalf of SportExcel was Executive Director Mr Sivanandan Chinadurai while Mr David Jeong Soo Yong, the president and founder of UUMISM signed on behalf of the international school.
Mr Jeong said apart from the cash sponsorship the school would also be awarding a one-month all expenses-paid full scholarship golf camp at UUMISM for the overall champions for the A, B and C categories for both boys and girls.
“We will also be providing free golf clinics three times a year to all interested junior golfers who have participated in SportExcel tournaments,” he added, at the event held at the Bukit Jalil Golf and Country Club in Kuala Lumour.
He also said over the years, he had witnessed how SportExcel had helped to nurture young talents in the country and that had prompted UUMISM to get itself involved with the sponsorship of the junior tour.
He said that through this collaboration with SportExcel, the school aimed to nurture and develop young sportsmen and women in golf, to raise the standard of golf skills and to identify potential talents for overseas tournaments.
“We have every intention of continuing this close collaboration with SportExcel through our various community outreach programmes such as golf clinics, golf camps during school breaks, educational programmes by the Ministry of Education and ongoing advertisements. Through these efforts we hope to create greater awareness and interest in golf, and thereby leading to an increased participation in SportExcel Junior tournaments.”
UUMISM, which was established in 2018 offers both Secondary Cambridge Education and a Specialised Golf programme. It is also registered with the Malaysian Ministry of Education and affiliated with Universiti Utara Malaysia.
The school provides two different golf programmes for students, as a co-curricular activity (CCA) or specialised golf programme.
“As a co-curricular activity, the primary goal is to provide a fun and enjoyable learning environment that aims to stimulate interest in the game.
“The specialised golf programme on the other hand is designed to develop consistency and excellence in all aspects of the sport such as technical, physical, mental, motivational and course strategy.
Students are trained to play at a professional level and have the option to pursue their education in golf locally at Universiti Utara Malaysia or other partner universities overseas, that is in Korea, the United States and Australia,” said Mr Jeong.
Tunku Imran in welcoming UUMISM on board as a title sponsor, said through the junior tournaments, SportExcel hoped to unearth talented youngsters who would go on to play in the Junior Elite Circuit, from where they would graduate to playing at a higher level of competition.
“I would like to proudly state that last year a total of 17 junior players from Malaysia, who grew up with SportExcel since they were five to seven years old, were offered scholarships to study and train at various universities in the United States.”
He noted that one of those who had benefited from SportExcel’s junior programme was Malaysian number one golfer, Gavin Green, who was currently doing very well on the international circuit.
He is currently ranked 150th in the world following his third placing at the Saudi International Tournament, which is part of the European Tour, early this month. He is also slated to play at the Oman Open this weekend and at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters next month. We wish him all the best and hopes he plays well enough in the coming months to qualify for the Open Championship at the Royal St George’s in July.
“I hope the success of the Malaysian Number One golfer will be a fine example for our junior golfers to emulate and show them what they can aspire to and achieve in the future if they put in enough effort,” said Tunku Imran.
SportExcel is a non-profit organisation which had been in existence for nearly 30 years. And during that time, it had contributed to the junior development of more than 50,000 athletes from various disciplines. Some of them had gone on to achieve great things on the world stage, most notable apart from Gavin Green, being squash queen Dato’ Nicol David, cyclists Azizul Hasni and Fatehah.
“To that end we at SportExcel would continue to commit ourselves to talent development by having more excellence-related programmes, in particular international exposure programmes for outstanding junior athletes. We firmly believe that international exposure for upcoming juniors, in the form of training and competition is important. But as a non-profit organization, we have to rely on sponsors for our funding.”