Asian Tour Yearbook: 2023

KIWI CAMPBELL FLIES HIGH AT FANLING SMITH AND PHACHARA PIPPED ON FINAL HOLE Ben Campbell [RIGHT] became the third Kiwi to win the Hong Kong Open. A s a golfer, Ben Campbell has endured more than his fair share of disappointments and setbacks. During his final years as an elite amateur and over the ensuing decade as a professional, the New Zealander had frequently found himself on the wrong end of narrow losses. Third-round leader in the third edition of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Singapore in 2011, starting spots at the following year’s Masters Tournament and Open Championship beckoned. However, a final-day 70 relegated him to third spot, two shots behind the triumphant Hideki Matsuyama. For Campbell, it was little consolation that he finished one shot ahead of fourth- placed Australian Cameron Smith and comfortably in front of highly-rated fellow Kiwi Ryan Fox. Upon joining the ranks of the professionals in 2012, Campbell was widely tipped to become a dominant force. It didn’t work out that way, though, with his solitary success coming at the New Zealand PGA Championship in 2018. On the Asian Tour, he’d contended on more than a dozen occasions, only to fall agonisingly short. At the fabled Hong Kong Golf Club in the second week of November 2023, the tide finally turned. Putting behind him the demons of previous close calls and the doubts that had swirled in his mind since undergoing back surgery and missing six months of the 2022 campaign, Campbell wrote his name into Hong Kong Open folklore with a gutsy victory, secured on the famous final green at the Fanling venue. “It’s good to finally get the monkey off the back. I was just battling away all day,” said Campbell, who drained a 15-foot birdie putt on the home hole to defeat playing partners Smith and Thailand’s Phachara Khongwatmai after a gripping battle over the closing stages. Campbell, who had not led at any stage of the tournament until that brilliant last putt, shot a four-under-par 66 to finish on 19-under and beat Smith by one and Phacahara by two. 127 HONG KONG OPEN H ON G KON G GO L F C L U B | NOV EM B E R 9 - 1 2 , 2 0 2 3 | P R I Z E MON E Y U S $ 2 M I L L I ON