Many men take up golf late in life but few, if any, have earned a place in the Hong Kong Open.
William Fung Wai-kuen, 52, is a latecomer to the game by anyone's reckoning. He first swung a club in earnest only 13 years ago, at the age of 39, while working in Canada.
A professional tennis coach since leaving middle school, the athletic Fung thought he had better try a new game because he was getting too slow on the tennis court and he wanted to play a sport that would take him into his latter years.
'The speed of tennis, the energy spent when playing - it was getting harder for me, which is why I turned to golf,' Fung recalls. 'But then I quickly realised that golf is actually a much more difficult game to play well, but by then it was too late. I was hooked.
'I desperately wanted to become a professional. I spent a lot of money playing golf when I was in Canada. Looking back it was risky, which is why I had to make it. Luckily, my family was supportive.'
While the in-form teenage amateur pair of Steven Lam Tsz-fung and Jason Hak Shun-yat will undoubtedly be the focus of attention at the UBS Hong Kong Open, which begins on November 12, spare a thought for Fung who - unless the organisers announce British Open runner-up Tom Watson as part of the line-up at Fanling - will be the oldest player in the field.
