PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — If you watched Haotong Li play the first two rounds of the Masters in 2019, with Jon Rahm and Tiger Woods, you actually might have thought he could someday win the Masters. He hit toweringly high shots with every club that stopped on command and he was longer than his playing partners with the driver. Tiger did that thing that Tiger does, when he’s impressed: He watched.
What you would not have guessed was that Li, a tall, slender 29-year-old golfer from Hunan, China, would someday contend on a short, quirky, bouncy British Open course, like the one he is playing this week at Royal Portrush. He shot 67 on Thursday and liked the number so much he shot it again on Friday. He’s smack-dab in the middle of this 153rd Open Championship, a tournament that has been won by Irishmen, Englishmen, Scotsmen, Americans, Australians, as well as one Frenchman, one Italian and one Spaniard — but never a golfer from China. If by some astounding chance, Mr. Li can shoot a lower score than Scottie Scheffler and Matthew Fitzpatrick and various other better-known talents, Li will become to Chinese golf what Seve Ballesteros was to European golf.
China has 1.4 billion people (and counting) and 600 courses (and counting). Can you imagine the coronation Li would get at home if he left town as the Champion Golfer of the Year?
Watching Li, you do not get the sense of the inferno working overtime deep inside him. That’s what his South African caddie, Jady de Beer, said Friday night, as more rain started to fall in a town that is accustomed to rain and on a golf course that can handle it.
“The fans won’t see it, but inside, his good is very good, and his bad is very bad,” de Beer said. “He plays with a lot of heart.”
American golf fans may not be that familiar with him, but the rest of the golfing world is. He played on the International team in the 2019 Presidents Cup in Australia (when Woods was the U.S. captain and, in the end, the winning one). That was at Royal Melbourne, a bouncy links course if ever there was one. Li smoked Dustin Johnson in the Sunday singles, 4 and 3. He’s won four times on the DP World Tour. That is, what Seve called Europe. Seve played Europe and the world. This Haotong Li is doing about the same.
In a post-round interview Friday night, where his outstanding English and a playful manner were on display, Li revealed that he has been wearing the same good-luck gold necklace since he was 14. That he lives 40 minutes by car from the course — “the facility” — where he practices and plays. That is, 40 minutes if there’s no traffic. That playing with Woods for two days in 2019, in the year he won his fifth Masters, was “like a dream come true.”
He was asked to rank the four majors. Golfers who are not from the United States will often cite the Open Championship and the Masters as their top two.
He wasn’t going down that road.
“I don’t mind any major,” he said.
But now it was pouring. His girlfriend was nearby, under an umbrella. His caddie had brought the bag to bag storage. Haotong Li took some questions about football (soccer), about a wedge he had stamped The Most Handsome Man in China, about his lucky necklace. And then he was off, to face the biggest weekend of his golfing life.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.
