By David Ferguson
China.org.cn staff reporter
What a ridiculously easy game this golf is.
A gangling fourteen-year old kid can turn up with his clubs, knock off a couple of par rounds, and make the cut at the UBS Hong Kong Open, one of the oldest and most prestigious events on the Asian tour.
To be fair to young Hong Kong Chinese player Jason Hak, his story goes a little deeper than that. His qualification for the weekend rounds today broke a record held by a certain Mr Sergio Garcia, who was previously the youngest man ever to make the cut in a European Tour event. Sergio was fifteen years and 46 days old when his record was set in 1995 in Spain; Jason is fourteen years and 304 days, and his record is likely to stand for a long time.
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| Jason Shun Yat Hak became the youngest ever player to make the cut on a European Tour event, taking a record previously held by Sergio Garcia. |
It's not as if Hak made it easy for himself either. Having played his first round in par, he found himself around the numbers that looked like they would make the cut for the weekend. Starting just before nine in the last of the morning threesomes, he dropped four shots in his outward nine, including a double-bogey at the par-five third. On the back nine he proceeded to win back every one of the dropped shots, including stunning birdies on both 17 and 18 to put himself back in the mix.
He was then faced with a stressful wait through the afternoon to see what would happen in the second half of the field, and whether his effort was going to be enough to see him through to the weekend – at least it was stressful for the anxious media, desperate to see whether the Garcia record would fall. The young man himself seemed to take it all in his stride.
He was as self-effacing as you would expect of a fourteen-year old in his position. He had never played the course until this week: "It was pretty good," he said. "I just feel maybe a little nervous, but still pretty good."
Asked if he had spoken to any of the other players, or if they had spoken to him, he modestly explained: "I said Hi to Bernhard Langer, and I've spoken to Liang Wenchong and Zhang Lianwei. They were nice to me."
If Hak maintains his youthful promise he is set to become a major draw in China, though he lives and studies in Orlando, Florida. Hak Shun Yat Jason, to give him his full name, plays under the flag of Hong Kong, but his family is mainland Chinese – his father comes from Beijing - and his native language is Mandarin.
Hak's qualification was the main talking-point of the day, but there was plenty of other action at the top of a leaderboard that finished in a ferocious logjam. Four players are in a tie for first place on eight-under: England's Oliver Fisher, South Africa's Louis Oosthuizen, Chawalit Plaphol of Thailand, and inevitably, Mr ITMA himelf, – the man who has been there or thereabouts in almost every tournament he has played in Asia in the past year, and in many others as well - Oliver Wilson.
