You might want to remember the name Haotong Li.
This 20-year-old kid has a major-league golf game and it showed all week at the HSBC Champions event.
No pressure on Li, he only had the eyes of an entire nation watching his every swing. Playing well would have been a tall order for anyone, much less a Web.com Tour player.
Li was in the field on a national exemption as a natural-born native of China.
He had the galleries falling all over themselves as he shot rounds of 66-69-66 over the first 54-holes and found himself just a shot out of the lead. The cool thing is that the young player kept it real. “I just want to finish in the top 10,” was his hope, he didn’t think he was ready to win, but hoped to post the highest finish ever by a Chinese player in a WGC event.
That’s exactly what he did. Even with great expectations from everyone but himself, Li kept his wits about him over the final 18 holes. His start was horrible. Over his first five holes he had three bogeys and a double-bogey but he fought back with three birdies then reeled off six straight pars on the back nine before he made back-to-back birdies at 16 and 17 to finish the day with an even-par effort of 72 to tie for seventh and find himself in company of guys like Jordan Spieth.
He was excited and didn’t try to hide it.
“This is very, very big,” he said. “Incredible week for me.”
