Fans watching blind golfers, including world champion David Morris, drive down the middle of the fairway and pop birdie putts into the cup when they reached the greens could hardly believe their eyes.
The sight of blind and visually impaired players taking on the testing Discovery Bay Golf and Country Club this week was both inspirational and amazing.
Watching one of the competitors, Canadian Dennis McCullouch, tee it up on the 177-yard eighth hole and fire the ball to within a few feet of the hole for a birdie had cheering spectators shaking their heads in admiration.
While blind runners have long competed in marathons, in Hong Kong and in many other countries, and there are blind skiers, soccer players, cricketers and judo exponents, golf is something else. It frustrates those with 20/20 vision and was described by Winston Churchill as one 'whose aim is to hit a very small ball into a even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose'.
The nine-strong field of blind players from all over the world were competing in a nine-hole stableford, best-ball team along with Hong Kong celebrities, professionals and invited guests. The field of nine top blind players included Morris of England, Canada's Johanna Camarta, who won the US nett championship, McCullouch, winner of the men's Canadian Blind Open, Misao Takamatsu of Japan, Australia's David Blyth and Howard Lange, Doug Stoutley of Canada, Neil Baxter of England and Northern Ireland's Jan Dinsdale. Players fall into three categories: B-1 for the totally blind and B-2 and B-3 for the visually impaired with all golfers tested by their associations.
At the centre of attention was totally blind Morris, who was in the winning team along organiser Wilson Choy, of GreenWorldwide, film star Michael Wong Man-tak and rock guitarist Joey Tang Kin-ming. Morris, clad in a pair of snappy red shorts, showed why he had beaten the world's best as he found the fairways and greens with impressive precision after being set up for each shot by his coach Linda Charlton.