Making an Impact

Alex Jenkins takes a look at the highlights from 2015, a year that proved to be one of the most important and memorable in Hong Kong golfing history.

Derik Leung at the MercedesTrophy in Stuttgart

Performance of the Year

There were three individual performances that really stood out in 2015. First up: Terrence Ng, who won his maiden Hong Kong Close Amateur Championship over the Lunar New Year. Ng, who now studies in Australia, has come close on numerous times before without crossing the line, but a new-found belief in his game saw him cruise to victory over the New Course at the Hong Kong Golf Club by seven shots. His win meant another personal first: he was heading back to Fanling to make his debut in the UBS Hong Kong Open.

Then there was Derik Leung, who flew the flag for Hong Kong at the MercedesTrophy World Final in Stuttgart in early October. Leung was part of the North Asia team which won the Nations Cup and made it all the way to Germany after starting out as a HKGA Road to MercedesTrophy qualifier earlier in the year. Excellent performances at both Fanling and then Australia, where he progressed through regional qualifying, saw Leung through to the elite MercedesTrophy World Final field. The MercedesTrophy has become one of the premier dates on the amateur golfing calendar in Hong Kong and as Leung’s journey shows, the rewards can be significant.

As good as Ng and Leung’s achievements were, it is hard to look past Tiffany Chan's victory at the Taiwan LPGA's Future Open in August. The amateur became the first Hong Kong player in history to win a professional event that carries Rolex Women's World Golf Ranking points when she posted a brilliant nine-under-par total in high winds to best a field of experienced pros. It gave Chan the perfect send-off: just two weeks later she was on a plane to Los Angeles to enroll at the University Southern California, which boasts one of the strongest college golf teams in the US.

Winner: Tiffany Chan.

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