Portrush, Northern Ireland – if you would see Hootong Li play the first two rounds of masters in 2019, with Jon Rahm and Tiger WoodsYou might have thought he could one day win the masters. He hit the high tower shots with every club that stopped in command and he was longer than his partners playing with the driver. Tiger did what Tiger does when he impresses: He looked.
What you wouldn’t have thought was that Li, a tall, thin 29-year-old golf player from Hunan, China, would one day fight in a short, strange, fiery course, like the one he is playing this week at Royal Portrush. He shot the 67th on Thursday and liked the number so much that he shot him again on Friday. He is soft in the middle of that The 153th open championshipA tournament won by Irish, Englishmen, Scots, Americans, Australians, as well as a Frenchman, an Italian and a Spanish – but never a golf player from China. If from any surprising chance, Mr. Li can shoot a lower score than Scottie Scheffler and Matthew Fitzpatrick and other more popular talent, Li will become for Chinese golf what was Seve Ballesteros for European golf.
China has 1.4 billion people (and counting) and 600 courses (and counting). Can you imagine the marriage that Li would take home if he left the city as the champion golf player of the year?
Looking at Li, you do not get the meaning of inferno that works overtime inside it. This is what his Caddy said in South Africa, Jady de Beer, on Friday evening, as more rain began to fall into a city that is accustomed to the rain and in a golf course that can handle it.
“Fans won’t see it. But inside, its good is LOT well, and his evil is LOT Bad, “said de Beer.” He plays with a lot of heart. “
American golf fans may not be so familiar with him, but the rest of the golf world is. He played on the international team at the 2019 Presidents of the 2019 in Australia (when Woods was the US captain and, after all, the winner). That was in Royal Melbourne, a course of fiery bond if there was sometimes one. Li smokes Dustin Johnson in Sunday bachelors, 4 and 3. He has won four times in the DP tour. That is, what Seve called Europe. Seve played Europe and the world. This li haotong is doing for the same.
In an interview after the Round Friday evening, where his prominent English and a pleasant way were on the show, Li discovered that he wore the same good fortune necklace since he was 14 years old. That he lives 40 minutes by car from the course-the “object”-where he practices and plays. That is, 40 minutes if there is no traffic. That playing with Woods for two days in 2019, in the year he won his fifth masters, was “as a dream come true”.
He was asked to list the four diplomas. Golfists who are not from the United States will often quote the open championship and masters as their first two.
He was not going down on that road.
“I don’t care about any major,” he said.
But now he was pouring. His girlfriend was near, under an umbrella. His caddy had brought the bag to storing the bag. Haotong Li got some questions about football (football), about a wedge that he had sealed the most beautiful man in China, for his lucky necklace. And then he was out, to face the biggest weekend of his golf life.
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