Sentosa, Singapore, January 16: Read to find out what our top contenders have to say ahead of the SMBC Singapore Open which starts on Thursday.

Jazz Janewattananond (Tha)

I love coming back to Singapore. I played really well at the Sentosa Golf Club the last two years. The course is in great shape and my game is quite good. I had two weeks off before playing last week. It’s a good feeling to have at the start of the year.

I played well last year to earn my Major debut. I would love to do it again. I really enjoyed myself at The Open last year and it’s definitely my aim to go to Royal Portrush this July. It was an eye-opener for me at The Open and it’s one of the best experiences which I have ever had.

The 2018 season only ended like two weeks ago for me. I didn’t get a lot of rest but it’s ok. Sometimes it’s not good to take a long break. You need a lot of time to find back your form. Two to three weeks will be perfect.

My aim is to get multiple wins on the Asian Tour this year. I have been wanting to achieve that for a few years now. I planned to play more in Europe as well.

Justin Harding (Rsa)

I would love to have more of 2018 actually. The past seven months have obviously been a whirlwind, especially since my breakthrough in Indonesia. It’s just going to be pretty much the same.

I am playing the Serapong course for the first time this week and it’s the start of a brand-new Asian Tour season. The course’s certainly not easy. It’s demanding off the tee.

It’s my first time in Singapore. It’s bit tricky when you can’t explain every time you travel to a new place and people back home thinks you’re going on a holiday. Very often, it’s just travelling between golf course and hotel for me. I flew in here on Saturday.

I would love to tour around Singapore a little but I only had the chance to tour the island. The atmosphere is good here. At the end of the day, it’s about playing in this tournament. It’s the first of the season. It’s nice coming off a good break and start the season here.

It’s like a warm-up to the season this week but the golf course is a great test to every aspects of your game. You kind of need to come in early and prepare well and be all ready for tomorrow.

Sanghyun Park (Kor)

I had a great year last year. I am delighted to be back. I think the more I play here, the more I am familiar with this course. Hopefully my experiences from the past two years will help me this week. I played in The Open for the first-time last year too.

I missed out on the opportunity in Singapore when I finished tied-sixth but made up for the disappointment by securing my spot through the Kolon Korean Open later. It was a pity that I didn’t play well in Carnoustie. I would love to play The Open again this year.

Davis Love III (Usa)

I’ve been here about 12 hours. I’m enjoying it so far, having a great time on the golf course. I saw Dru this morning having breakfast and we’re going to have to change roles – usually I’m telling him what to do in a tournament but he’s been here for a few days so he’s telling me where everything is.

I’ve played 3 of the first four/fall series since the start of the year. Not great results but I played the weekends and felt my game’s coming around…Actually, Saturday was one of my best playing games in the while and confidence is coming back. I’m excited about my form and came here with high expectations, what with the great greens, great golf course and the four spots to get into The Open Championships so I was definitely gearing to this point this week.

There’s more stress on me because I’m trying to play my ball and play his as well I’m trying to get his ball to go on the hole maybe harder than mine. I always want him to do well and have a good week. I prefer him to beat me this week. If he beats me, I just want one of those four spots for The Open Championship. We compete at home, we compete any time. He said “Dad, we should have played a little bit in the Pro-Am today.” We’re always thinking about each other but out here with Sergio and Ryo, we got a whole bunch of guys to beat so it’s going to be tough.

If I putt the way I did last week, yes. I’m not the longest player in the field, I used to be. But like Dru said, he’s going to hit it high over the bunkers and I’m going to figure out where to hit it off the tee. Playing late yesterday or Sunday in Hawaii I didn’t have time here to play extra practice round so there’ll be a lot of studying tonight to figure out where and how to hit it off the tee. But from the fairway to green and putting, my game is in pretty good shape I’m excited about my chances. You just have to be smart. The guys who have played here like Sergio who have seen the golf course going to have a bit of advantage over us. But give me a couple of days and we’ll figure it out. There are a lot of golf courses out there but this is a really good challenging golf course.

I’m with Lagardere as my management company, and they’ve been telling me about this tournament, trying to get me to come. The opportunity to come to play in Singapore where I’ve never been was a big draw. The four spots for the Open was a big draw. But the main thing is his (Dru’s) mum said we’re going. This is a place I’ve always wanted to come. I don’t go on vacation very much; I travel to play golf, so this is a great opportunity to come to a place I’ve never seen before.

I made a commitment to some of my sponsors to play more on the regular tour this year than the champions tour. I want to get back into the 125, and try to get back in the players championship, which I haven’t played in the last few years and is one of my favourite tournaments. I don’t want to give up on the LA Opens and the Genesis Open. I’m going to play at Pebble Beach – some of the great golf courses that we get to play on the regular tour, I just don’t want it to be my last time to play them yet. I just can’t really pull the trigger on going to the Champion’s Tour full-time yet. My goal is 125, getting my ranking back up – last week I finally popped back into the top 100 in the FedEx. I don’t like being 82nd, but it’s better than being 182nd, where I’ve been a lot these past few years with injuries. 125 is the goal, and trying to win another tournament – if I won now, I would be the oldest who’s ever won on the PGA Tour. If I can stay healthy 40 more turns, then I’ll have played more turns than anybody on the PGA Tour. Healthy is a good goal – and 125.

It’s in great shape, it’s challenging – off the tee you need to be very smart with the clubs you hit and where you hit it, but it’s a great golf course. Big rolling greens where you have to hit it in the right section of the green and your putting is going to have to be spot on. I’ve been excited ever since I looked it up in the world rankings, and looked up the designer and talked to the players who’ve been here in the past. I’m excited about the golf course, the tournament, and the chance to compete with these guys.

My advice to Dru is just to be patient. That’s one thing I’ve learned over 34-5 years of doing this – you have to be very patient with yourself and your game at the golf course. Sometimes when you’re young you want things to happen fast, and look at negative things, if you’re just very patient and methodical and do your routine and play your game, good things can happen. I think that’s one of my strengths -just to be patient and have a positive attitude.

Dru Love (Usa)

I have been here since Sunday night. Got to explore the city a little bit and it’s beautiful; one of my new favourite cities in the world. Incredible place and incredible golf course.

I think my game’s pretty good and the golf course and suits my game a bit. I like to drive all the way you can carry some of these bunkers out here and can really take advantage of it, so I’m really excited to take on tomorrow and think it’ll be really good.

We’ve played together a few times now. In the beginning was comforting to have him playing in the same tournament. In the middle it was more pressure cos I want to beat him, and then I finally beat him and now I’m just playing golf. We look at the rankings to see how each other are playing.

My goal is to play my way into the Web.com Finals. I want to try and see if I can get myself a Web.com card – that’s my goal. I think it’s possible to do it, I’ve seen a lot of guys in the last couple of years do it. It takes a lot of good golf.

The course’s amazing. I got here the first person I saw when I got to the course was Smylie Kaufman. He told me the greens were incredible, and I went straight to the putting green because professional golfers love nothing more than perfect greens. I started taking a few putts and it really incredible, some of the best greens I’ve putted on the long time. The Serapong course is beautiful, the skyline views and the ocean – it’s hard to beat, and it’s a really special place.

My advice to my dad is to drink a lot of water. That’s all I say.

Ryo Ishikawa (Jpn)

After the last tournament in Japan, the Japan series, I had a little bit of time off to relax. Before coming back here to Singapore I had two weeks of practising, trying to keep the motivation high. This is the second time I play in this tournament. The greens are superb, this is probably one of the best greens to play. I played well last year, and so I’m looking forward to playing well again this week.

Well, I’m now 100% recovered. Last year at around Spring time is when I started running, which is very important for golf, and I’m very fortunate to have recovered at this point.  At this point, nothing is set in stone, but my goal is to play good golf. Hopefully I can win some tournaments in Japan and maybe two or three more events. There’s also the Olympics in Japan next year, so I’d very much like to be there.

My driving is getting better. This is a good and challenging course for driving tee shots so if I can have a tee shot on the golf course it’s going to be very exciting for me. Very fortunate to have the opportunity to play with the world’s top players in this tournament. Very grateful to Asian Tour and Japan tour for this opportunity. For myself, I’m going into this as a challenger of the cup.

If I can get back to my best form this week, it’ll be fantastic. I’m getting better and better. I only peaked in the last month of my last season – it was a tough season for me. I couldn’t win but I felt something that I had lost for a couple of years, so I hope to get into that into that condition this week with the best players – Sergio, Paul, Matt and James. They’re all very good players and for Japanese players to watch them play is very rare. Japanese players are now getting into the European and PGA Tours so that’s a good sign for us.

This week is a huge opportunity for me and the other guys from Japan and I just want to make the best of out this competition.

Paul Casey (Eng)

I believe there has been a constant kind of curve on the way up in terms of how many guys we see playing world class golf from Asia now. It feels like it used to be just a number you could count on one hand, sort of key names. But its dozens of guys, and guys I’ve never heard of right behind them who are about to take our place. I’d love to see the numbers on it but it’s certainly been a swell, and it’s something the world has taken notice of.

They are competing all over now – there are multiple winners on the PGA tour, European Tour and Asian Tour so that’s why when the three of us come over here this week, we know how tough this is going to be this week. The depth of field, I think that certain thing you see. You see the great players playing world golf but it’s now very deep as well. I don’t think we could honestly say that a decade ago. The depth wasn’t there but it is now. I was not quite as sharp as I would like to have been. But that does not have much bearing on what this week is going to bring. This is a golf course that I remember really thoroughly enjoying playing and (has) the types of grass I like to play on. I recall it being very windy so touch wood it is not going to be that way this week.

Sergio Garcia (Esp)

It feels good to be back. It is a course I love playing, a wonderful golf course, and to be here as champion is always special. It was a good off season. A little bit of rest – which was nice after a very hectic year – and I started practicing a couple of weeks ago. There is still a little bit of rust in there but hopefully I will get it off in this heat. We’ve been talking about it for a while now. Every year, you see more and more great Asian players coming out.

Youngsters are coming out to play at the highest level and they’re doing well. I think probably one of the biggest ones right now is Li Haotong. There’s a good group of young Asian players out there, such as Hideki Matsuyama and some Koreans. So you can see that the level is growing every year. Things are being done the right way here in this part of the world and when it comes to golf, you can see the effects.

Matthew Fitzpatrick (Eng)

The course is in fantastic condition and I am really looking forward to the week. I got back to work after the off season and have been practicing for five weeks straight trying to get into shape so I can compete with these guys (Garcia and Casey) a little bit more. I have not played too much in Asia but I have played two EurAsia Cups. The first year we went with a really strong team and we played really well, that was in 2016. We won fairly convincingly. Two years later, I would say we went with a stronger team and we almost got beaten. That shows as well -we had some of the 10 best players in Asia against 10 in Europe, and it was certainly tough at the start last year and that definitely shows that the standard is coming up.

Danthai Boonma (Tha)

I like this golf course a lot and I like Singapore too. I’m hoping to repeat what I’ve done from last year and maybe do even better. I know what is needed to improve my flaws and my game in general. Putting will be the key for me this week and I’ve been working hard on that. I have a house in Hua Hin and that was where I spent most of my time with my friends and family during the short break we had. My goal for this year is to finish inside the top-10 on the Order of Merit.