Special Places - Hong Kong Golf Club

The European Tour is in the Far East for the third event in a row as the action moves to Hong Kong Golf Club for the UBS Hong Kong Open. This is the last chance for players to break into the top 60 on the Order of Merit and secure a spot on next week’s season ending Race to Dubai. The golf club is in Fanling, about 45 minutes northwest of downtown Hong Kong and has hosted the tournament since its inception in 1959.

The Hong Kong Golf Club was originally founded in 1889 as the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club and shared facilities in Happy Valley with other activities and sports. Its first dedicated course was a short nine-hole layout in Deep Water Bay that opened in 1898 and is still in use today. Expansion necessitated a move to the current location in Fanling where the 18-hole Old Course was built in 1911. Twenty years later the New Course was added and increasing demands brought about the building of the Eden Course in 1970. The “Royal” designation was removed from the club’s name in 1996 just prior to the transfer of Hong Kong’s sovereignty back to the People’s Republic of China.

This tournament is Hong Kong’s oldest professional sporting fixture and has been won by nine major championship winners including Peter Thompson, Tom Watson, Greg Norman and Bernhard Langer. It also boasts the youngest player ever to make the cut in a European Tour event when Hong Kong native Jason Hak made it through to the weekend in 2008, two months short of his 15th birthday.

The 144 man field playing the 6100m par 70 course will include reigning US Open Champion Graeme McDowell, 2009 PGA champion Y E Yang and past Open and PGA winner John Daly. Defending champion Frenchman Gregory Bourdy heads a list of former winners including victorious Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie and Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez. Also with a keen eye on the title is Northern Ireland’s 21 year-old fast-rising star Rory McIlroy who was runner-up the last two years and is hoping to make it third time lucky and cement his place in the top ten of the world rankings.