With barely 90 days remaining until Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty, Chris Patten is on the home stretch of what has proved a physically and mentally demanding course, liberally sprinkled with hidden hazards. Acting as governor has lived up to its reputation as a task requiring abundant measures of skill, patience and stamina to negotiate the many uneven lies that inevitably crop up.
Par is always a good score on this type of character-building course, where an ability to plot your way around with savvy layout management is worth at least a couple of strokes. While there have been inspirational birdies along the way, the Bath shot-maker's scorecard has been marred not only by his tendency to find the deep traps that are a feature of the course, but also by his incurring the wrath of Rules Officials who have called numerous penalty shots on him.
Although the course won't become any easier over the last couple of tricky dog-legs, Patten will be driven on by the enticing prospect of joining Hong Kong's long line of golfing governors for a warming whisky and soda in the clubhouse. For more than a century, Hong Kong governors have been swinging away. As ball-strikers, some have been good, others indifferent. None have seen fit to give up their day job.
The precedent of golfing governors was set by Sir William Des Voeux in 1889, when he accepted the presidency of the newly formed Hong Kong Golf Club (HKGC).
In 1896, he was followed in that role by Sir William Robinson, who was credited with helping the HKGC secure a lease for a plot of land at Deepwater Bay.
Another governor to whom the club was indebted was Sir Henry May, who assisted with negotiations for a lease for a full-size 18-hole course at Fanling in 1911, and who was also instrumental in acquiring for the club an additional area for a nine-hole relief course for the use of the ladies, later expanded into the Eden Course.
