I’ve just wrapped up what feels like a once‑in‑a‑lifetime week covering the 57th Singapore Open at Sentosa Golf Club — home of the iconic Serapong course and easily one of the best tracks in Asia.

Being part of The International Series gave this year’s edition a bigger stage, a stronger field, and an extra buzz that never really left from Thursday to Sunday.

It also felt like coming full circle. I haven’t been to Singapore in quite some time, but I carry plenty of memories from here — including three Southeast Asian Games assignments, the last in 2015.

One trip that still stands out goes back to 2004, when I was one of three sportswriters invited to play in the pro‑am of the Caltex Masters presented by Carlsberg Singapore. The details are hazy now — it’s been 22 years — but I still remember the limousine ride from the airport to Raffles Hotel, each of us in our own car, treated like VIP guests in a city where we were usually just bystanders with notebooks.

Somehow this duffer ended up in a putting contest with Colin Montgomerie, one of the tournament’s sidelights, then in a pro‑am round at Laguna National with Ryder Cupper Ignacio Garrido of Spain — the kind of surreal week you file away in the memory bin like a well‑struck shot you never quite forget.

It was never about the scorecard. It was about being inside the ropes, seeing the game from a different angle while the setting remained world‑class.

Coming back to Singapore now for the Singapore Open, the perspective shifts. You’re no longer just watching the game; you’re watching how far it has evolved.

The fields are deeper, the stakes higher, and the pathways clearer — with The International Series now woven into the event, offering ranking points and career doors that didn’t exist two decades ago.

Five Filipinos teed it up last week; for everyone except Angelo Que, it was their first taste of Serapong. Que, Carl Jano Corpus and Sean Reyes all missed the cut. Only Aidric Chan and Justin Quiban made it through to the weekend.

At Sentosa Golf Club, the Serapong doesn’t change much in appearance, but it always finds a way to feel different depending on the moment. This week, it felt like a stage where established names and rising talents kept colliding, every round adding another layer to the story.

Singapore itself remains familiar. The efficiency, the quiet order, the way major sports events are staged here — everything feels seamlessly put together. Beneath that structure are small personal threads: old SEA Games assignments, memories from that Caltex Masters pro‑am, and that rare chance years ago to play instead of merely report.

In many ways, covering this 57th edition felt less like just another week at work and more like revisiting chapters of a longer journey. Same city, same sport — but a different view, shaped by time, experience, and everything that’s happened in between.

From the intensity of the leaderboard battles to the unforgiving beauty of Serapong, it was a week that didn’t just showcase top‑level golf — it reminded me why some tournaments you don’t just cover, you carry with you long after the last putt drops.

Hopefully, next time, I get a chance to play at Serapong in a future pro‑am event — finally repaying the course the respect it’s always demanded from the rest of the world.