Ben Coley says Patrick Reed is the man to beat in Hong Kong but is keen to side with a young Chinese duo with big potential.
Golf betting tips: Hong Kong Open
1pt e.w. Wenyi Ding at 66/1 (BoyleSports 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Sampson Zheng at 80/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Kensei Hirata at 90/1 (Paddy Power 1/4 1,2,3,4,5)
0.5pt e.w. Yubin Jang at 125/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
Cross-tournament doubles
4x 0.5pt doubles Reed and Casey (11/1, 16/1) with Paratore and Celli (22/1, 25/1)
Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook
The loss of the Hong Kong Open from the DP World Tour schedule predates Covid, never mind LIV Golf, but remains a real shame for those of us in the ‘purists’ bracket. Hong Kong Golf Club, or Fanling to you and I, is an old-school treat of a course: tight and tree-lined, placement rather than power, and really tricky when the wind blows and the course firms up.
Nowadays the course helps form part of the LIV Golf schedule but this old event remains under the Asian Tour banner, several LIV players using it as a late-season opportunity to bag some precious world ranking points. And, with both main men’s tours taking a one-week break, it’s therefore a fun event to try to unravel.
The first thing to say is that PATRICK REED ought to be favourite and at the very least he’s worth placing in some cross-tour doubles, to small stakes, with selections (mine or your own!) for the Rolex Grand Final.
Reed shot 59 en route to victory here last year and Fanling is made for his game. He’d hinted at such when third on debut a decade ago and 10th place on his latest start followed two poor performances to begin the LIV Golf season. I was surprised to see Tom McKibbin given a better chance and David Puig an equal one, their powerhouse games less suited to the assignment.
McKibbin played well here in the spring, finishing a shot ahead of Reed, but the strongest piece of form either has produced lately is Reed’s third place at Wentworth. That’s a broadly similar test and should carry much more weight that the Open de Espana a couple of weeks ago, in which hot putting helped McKibbin to a top-five finish.
Around here, Reed has a definite edge and I’d say the biggest threat comes not from those two youngsters, but from veteran PAUL CASEY. More accurate than he’s ever been off the tee, Casey has been second and fifth in two LIV Golf starts here, losing a play-off in 2024 and then leading after rounds one and two this year.
He probably should’ve won one if not both events on his return to a course where he played nicely when emerging from a slump in 2012, and a closing 63 in Switzerland last time, though eight weeks ago now, was encouraging enough. It’s hard to be as confident about his prospects of seeing it through, but his chance remains an excellent one.
Reed by the way is 46th in the world so has plenty to play for, the top 50 still a definite goal. He should be thereabouts and is the pick of the favourites. Hand on heart though it’s been tough finding winners this year and getting stuck into a 10/1 shot playing most of his golf when we in the UK are sleeping appeals less than some small doubles.
There are other LIV Golf players with chances but several have been off since the team finale and others, like Dean Burmester for instance, are perhaps not playing at their very best right now. The more I look at this event, the less convinced I am that their relative class will count, with one or two exceptions, and there are four young players I consider viable contenders at nice odds.
First among them is WENYI DING, a player who has the potential to go a long way in the game.
Some may be underwhelmed by his first full season on the DP World Tour but some perspective: he was the first player to be handed membership as part of a new amateur pathway and, in at the deep end, was one place shy of reaching the Abu Dhabi Championship, comfortably retaining status.
Players like Angel Ayora and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen had much more experience and I’d call it a big success for Ding, who has made 19 cuts in 23 starts this year, with nine top-30s and a host of encouraging performances.
A fortnight ago he returned to familiar surroundings to finish third in Macau, where he was inside the top five all week, and two starts prior to that he’d sat fourth with a round to go in the Dunhill Links, where he really impressed faced with difficult conditions on Friday.
It’s no surprise, however, that his strongest form all year came in Asia, when eighth in China after he’d been 14th in Singapore, and where we are is a big part of the case. He won as a teenage amateur on the China Tour but more recently, Ding also led at halfway on the Challenge Tour last year.
Here at Fanling he was 39th in 2023, this while still at college, and having led the field in greens hit last week his return comes at a good time. Ding’s form right now is strong enough to justify prices around the 50/1 mark before even considering that he’s advantaged by the location and the nature of this course.
As an excellent driver of the ball whose short-game is a real strength, I think Fanling ought to bring out his best. That’s already good enough to compete at this level and there’s loads more to come.
Similar comments apply to SAMPSON ZHENG who, while not quite reaching the same heights as Ding, was a top-15 amateur before turning pro and immediately making an impact in a couple of strong Asian Tour events.
This year has been a bit of a struggle at times, but there have been clear indications recently that he’s turned a corner. Since the beginning of October he’s gone 19-28-4, contending twice, and he was the 54-hole leader last week after a brilliant 62.
Finishing fourth in another International Series event, just ahead of Marc Leishman and Caleb Surratt, should be considered an excellent effort even if he couldn’t convert the lead, and it sets him up wonderfully for a course which looks a good fit on paper.
Among those with 10-plus starts, Zheng ranks sixth on the Asian Tour in driving accuracy and third in scrambling and those were no doubt skills he put to use when qualifying for the Open this summer, another indication as to his talent and potential.
Around Fanling they’re sure to be handy and, like his compatriot and former amateur teammate Ding, playing in China should help for all that he now lives in Japan.
Speaking of Japan, KENSEI HIRATA has an ideal game for this.
He ranked fourth in driving accuracy en route to graduating from the Korn Ferry Tour this year, prior to which he’d been named rookie of the year on the Japan Golf Tour, where he won four times in 2024. Only Ryo Ishikawa and Hideki Matsuyama managed that at a younger age.
In a handful of PGA Tour starts, Irata has already been sixth in the ZOZO and 21st in the Sony Open, and while he struggled during the final weeks of the KFT season, a fortnight ago he progressed nicely each day for 17th in the Japan Open.
Nobody outscored Hirata in the final round there and this should be a comfortable course for a player with a PGA Tour card safely tucked away for next year. I’m not surprised bits and pieces of 100/1 were snapped up, with 66 and bigger fine for a bet.
There were two others I considered at bigger prices, first of which was Kevin Yuan. He’s played this course three times and twice made excellent starts to sit inside the top five, the other appearance a narrow missed cut when out of sorts generally.
Last year’s renewal saw him rank 15th in fairways and ninth in greens and nobody comes close to him for greens hit on the Asian Tour so far this year. He’s played 10 times and has led the field in four of them, ranking second another twice; accuracy is clearly what this young Aussie does best.
With eight top-20s in his last nine starts he also arrives in good form, he’s played on the China Tour before, and he’s mixed it with LIV players with a couple of top-10s in International Series events this year. Another wouldn’t surprise me, not at a course where the fairways-and-greens formula has always worked best.
I wasn’t quite willing to chance Yuan but will put forward YUBIN JANG.
He’s largely struggled on the LIV Golf circuit this year, playing as part of Kevin Na’s side, but two of his best three rounds came at this course, and the other came in the final event of the season.
Jang is a big hitter rather than the sort of accurate plodder often favoured by Fanling, but he was fifth here two years ago, closing with a round of 63 having opened with a 64. He has fond memories of China having won an Asian Games medal which exempts him from military service, and my feeling is that he remains someone with big, untapped potential.
Mid-pack LIV finishes are hard to rate but with his experience of this course, that closing 64 in Indianapolis and two 66s here in March to call upon, this relative unknown quantity is worth a small bet at three-figure prices.
Posted at 1330 GMT on 28/10/25
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