BEIJING: China’s number one Liang Wenchong is still looking to the work ethic he learned from his peasant farmer parents as he moves further and further afield in the quest to improve his golf.Liang has long been an advocate of Chinese players travelling abroad to play in the best tournaments available, a philosophy he put into action at the US PGA Tour’s Sony Open last weekend.
“Golf is a sport whereby you have to keep improving in order to do well,” the 31-year-old Liang, who finished tied for 25th at Waialae, said in an Asian Tour release. “You’ve got to keep challenging yourself to become a better player and that means having to play more abroad to test yourself against the best players in the world.” Liang was China’s first Asian Tour champion in 2007 and the second to win a European Tour event after trailblazer Zhang Lianwei when he won the Singapore Masters that same year.
Last season, he finished runner up to Thai Thongchai Jaidee in the race for the Asian Order of Merit.
“This season is going to be very different from the previous seasons that I’ve played in, I’ll be trying to play more events abroad and hopefully I’ll be able to achieve results there,” he said.
A player of no mean skill, Liang is renowned for his arduous practise schedule and he puts all that down to his parents, poor farmers in China’s southern Guangdong province.
“They taught me to work hard,” he said. “They worked from early morning till late evening every day so my practice routine is also almost the same,” the Chinese said.
“You have to work hard to be rewarded and you can only make your own future in the game.” — Reuters