Major winners Graeme McDowell, Patrick Reed and Aussie Cameron Smith enjoy star billing in this week’s 62nd edition of the prestigious Hong Kong Open.
Also proudly taking his place in the one of the Asian Tour’s premier events is Ireland’s Brian O’Donovan.
Of course, McDowell, Reed and Smith need no introduction, with the trio assured to draw huge interest over the four days starting this Thursday at the famed Hong Kong Golf Club course in suburban Fanling.
McDowell’s no stranger to the course, albeit it has been 14-years since he finished T18th in the 2009 Hong Kong Open, while G Mac teed-up two years earlier in 2007 posting four rounds in the 60s en route to a sixth place finish. Smith contested the 2014 Hong Kong Open in his then first full rookie pro season, and clearly showed what also lay-ahead in his career by sharing ninth place, and one of seven top-10s that year to see the Aussie finish fifth on the money list.
The Asian Tour event also boasts an exceptional honour roll of champions that include some of the greats of the game: Five-time Open winner Peter Thomson who a trio of Hong Kong Opens, fellow Aussie and fellow Open winner Kel Nagle, US Open champion Orville Moody, double Open winner Greg Norman (Also a two-time Hong Kong winner), Ian Woosnam, Bernhard Langer, Tom Watson, José María Olazábal, fellow Spaniard Miguel Angel Jiménez (Three Hong Kong wins), Ian Poulter, Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose.
Aussie Wade Ormsby is defending champion having won the event in 2017 as a joint Asian Tour and European Tour event, and then again in 2020 when it was last played due to Covid restrictions and the event was purely under the Asian Tour banner.
O’Donovan takes his place in the field thanks to a tournament invitation, having just taken over as the Head Professional at the host venue in July, leading a strong team of teaching professionals.
Prior to taking-up the post, the now 35-year-old O’Donovan had been Lead Instructor for just over four years at the PGA of America Golf Academy at the much-acclaimed Mission Hills club at Shenzhen.
O’Donovan grew-up in Bandon, County Cork and worked as a trainee professional from May 2010 to May 2013 under Stephen Hayes at Douglas Golf Club in Cork. Then after qualifying as a full PGA Professional at the University of Birmingham, he took to social media seeking a role to suit his new qualifications, and to cut a long story short, landed himself a job working at Mission Hills.
“The question people ask me the most is how I’ve ended up here in Mission Hills,” he said some years ago in an interview with ‘Joe.ie.’ “I actually just wanted to do something different. I’d heard of a few western guys coming over here so I looked into it.
“I did some interviews on Skype, they offered me the opportunity and I took it. Simple as that.”
Not surprisingly, O’Donovan singled out at the time that the biggest issue for him had been getting a grasp of the Chinese language.
“The language was a huge challenge,” he said in the same interview. “When I first arrived I’d no idea what was being said. If there were two Chinese people walking down the street in Dublin or Cork and you overhear them, it sounds like noise. That’s what it was like for a while.
“I’m getting some lessons from a girl in the office, but the problem is that one word has four different meanings depending on the tone you use.
“It was so confusing but I’m getting there now, though, I’m nowhere near where I want to be, but I can hold a conversation to a decent level.”
He worked as a golf instructor at Mission Hills for five years to the end of 2018 before commencing 2019 as Head Instructor.
The highlight of O’Donovan’s playing career was earning a full 2018 Tour card on the now defunct PGA China Tour, contesting 14 events and making the cut in five and ending his only season as a PGA Tour accredited pro with earnings of $43,694.
O’Donovan teamed with his father Donie as part of the Bandon Golf Club side that won the Irish Senior Cup at Castlebar in 2010, with another proud golfing high coming in June 2015 when he shot a score of 59 (-13) on the Annika Course at Mission Hills.
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