Joe 'the Pro' Hardwick's golfing fire still burns strong at 80

Joe Hardwick is taking in a day of rest at his home in Quinta do Lago, tucked away in Portugal's picturesque Algarve region, and it's fully deserved when you consider he's played three rounds of golf already this week - and then throw in the fact that he's 80 years of age.

"It's winter here and summer in England for me now," explains Hardwick. "I'm still loving my golf and every day I think back on how much the game has given me."

It must be pointed out, too, how much Hardwick - known in these parts as Joe the Pro - has given the game over the decades. That's not lost on the Hong Kong Professional Golf Association, which with the support of sponsor Ageas Insurance (Asia) has decided to mark the 30th edition of its championship - which will run from Wednesday to Friday at Kau Sai Chau - by naming its trophy after the man who first came to the city in 1965 and for 30 years helped chart the course of the game here.

It was Hardwick who helped form the HKPGA in 1970, along with the famous Australian golfer Peter Thomson, who was a major force behind establishing professional golf in Hong Kong and Asia. Kim Hall worked to have Hong Kong admitted to the World Cup, with the organisation's first pro members (alongside Hardwick) - Peter Tang, Tony Rawcliffe, Derek Stevenson and Duncan Park. Their sights were set firmly on representing the city at golf's World Cup. It would take two years of waiting, but the call came and Hardwick and Tang found themselves on the fairways of the Royal Melbourne playing alongside the likes of Arnold Palmer.

"Well, it was a dream come true," he says. "That was just a wonderful experience. The city had really got behind us and there we were playing among the best in the world. We came about 40th - there were 50 teams back in those days - but it helped put Hong Kong golf on the map."

And that was just one of the challenges that faced Hardwick when he arrived as a 33-year-old to take up the role of club pro at Hong Kong Golf Club. He had begun his professional career as assistant pro at his home Coombe Hill Golf Club, in Kingston, near London, before taking up the "opportunity of a lifetime" and heading to the Royal Calcutta Golf Club - the oldest club outside Britain, having been founded in 1829.

"My first trip to Hong Kong came when I played in the Open here in 1964 and I finished 20th," says Hardwick. "Lu Liang-huan was club pro at the time but had been told by Arnold Palmer that he should be playing tournaments and so off he went. But the time I got back to Calcutta, there was a letter waiting for me offering me the job and that was it. Two months later I arrived in town."