Hong Kong Open: Matthew Cheung takes top amateur gong to prime himself for professional tilt
- The 23-year-old fades after strong first two days at Fanling and now looks to the PGA Tour of Australasia’s qualifying school
Matthew Cheung Hung-hai’s final score of 13 over par in the Honma Hong Kong Open doesn’t tell the full story and doesn’t even go close to doing the 23-year-old’s performance at Fanling justice.
It was a final round of nine-over-par 79 on Sunday that did most the damage for Cheung, but before that he produced some sublime golf to ensure he was the only Hong Kong player and the only amateur to make the cut in a tournament won by England’s Aaron Rai with 17 under.
He did that with rounds of 71 and 70 on the opening two days to enter the weekend one over par and took heart from the myriad positives from the first half of the tournament after a tough final day.
“There are definitely positives from the week, I’m playing in a European Tour event. There is a lot of good players out there and I have definitely learned a lot this week,” he said.
“It’s always the goal at the start of the week to make the cut but it wasn’t too great the last two rounds.
“I had back spasms today so I was struggling to get through the ball, I was hitting it nowhere so it was tough.”
After missing the cut in his Open debut last year, Cheung was just happy to be playing the tournament again after winning the local qualifier last month.
