Next week, the 2009 European Tour stops at what many call the “Jewel in the Crown†of Asian golf – the Hong Kong Open.
For me, the tournament has special meaning because I grew up in Hong Kong and covered the event more than a dozen times as a journalist.
The golf was only part of the fun. There were fellow journalists from all parts of the world, top players and a major trek, by Hong Kong standards, to get to the course in Fanling at the Hong Kong Golf Club – previously Royal Hong Kong Golf Club.
It is more than a 90-minute journey from town, which is considerable in tiny Hong Kong and, for me, involved a bus ride, subway with change of trains, over-land train and taxi. We’d have to get into a train packed with people, many of whom on the way to nearby China.
Indeed, if you go to the highest point of the Old Course and crane your neck over the trees, you would probably see the bustling southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
On more than a few occasions, I’ve seen international golfers, heavy golf bags slung across shoulders, who had missed the tournament bus from their hotel, squeezed in with the locals as they rush to make tee-off time.
The Hong Kong Open is the oldest professional sporting event in the former British colony and the second-oldest golf tournament in Asia.
During my early years of covering the tournament, it was popular but faced an annual struggle to find sponsors.
Now co-sanctioned by the European Tour and Asian Tour, it is playing a big part in the new Race to Dubai, featuring twice as the European circuit adjusts its schedule to fit inside a calendar year by 2010.
This year’s field has some good names in Nick Faldo, Colin Montgomerie – both old Hong Kong hands, South African Rory Sabbatini, Graeme McDowell, Jeev Milkha Singh, Michael Campbell, Bernard Langer, defending champion Miguel Angel Jimenez and Jose Maria Olazabl.
Nine of the tournament’s past winners have been major champions – Olazábal, Langer, Padraig Harrington, Tom Watson, Ian Woosnam, Greg Norman, Orville Moody, Peter Thomson and Kel Nagle.
