Li locked and loaded for TPC
China’s Li Haotong saved his best for last, shooting a final round of 4-under 67 to tie for 19th at the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship on Sunday.
The 23-year-old, ranked No 35 in the world, carded six birdies and two bogeys over his last 18 holes at Club de Golf Chapultepec for a fourday total of 5-under 279.
Li ended the week 16 shots back of winner Dustin Johnson, who pushed China’s top-ranked player to second place at the Saudi International last month.
“It’s better than I expected after the third round,” said Li, who struggled to cope with the tricky greens at Chapultepec but managed to drain birdie putts on holes 2, 4, 6, 9, 15 and 16. His longest was a 26-footer.
“My game was better than my score, even though I didn’t hole many putts in the tournament. A lot of three-putts this week because of the tricky greens. But my game is in good shape,” said Li, who will compete in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill this week, followed by a second appearance in The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass — the flagship tournament of the PGA Tour.
With an 11th-place tie at the WGCHSBC Champions in Shanghai counting as well, Li hopes to maximize his opportunities to earn full tour membership through the non-member category, where he currently tops the list with 116 FedExCup points.
If he can reach 266 points, which was the points attained by the 150th-ranked golfer from last season’s standings, Li can attain special temporary membership and be eligible for unlimited sponsor exemptions for the remainder of the current PGA Tour season.
“I don’t want to waste any chance, any opportunity to get my PGA Tour status. I just want to play solid and prepare for the next stage,” said Li.
He is determined to make full use of his next two starts, especially at The Players, where he missed the cut in his debut last year.
“Last time I played there, I was uncomfortable ... like how I was over here (in Mexico),” he said.
“But this year I was more used to it and hopefully it will be the same when I go to TPC Sawgrass,” added Li, who is also chasing a spot in the International Team for the Presidents Cup later this year.
The term “extreme sports” conjures up images of magnificent athleticism and death-defying stunts on the part of those willing to put their lives on the line in pursuit of accomplishments that seem foolish to the average observer.
Still, world-class cinema is not something to which extreme sports has traditionally been linked.
By and large, documentaries and feature films on extreme sports have been bogged down by obnoxious heavy-metal soundtracks or overbearing and unnecessarily intense narration, but now an Oscar-winning documentary has succeeded in breaking the mold.
which last weekend won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, tells the story of rock climber Alex Honnold, who scaled Yosemite National Park’s 3,000foot ‘El Capitan’ without the aid of safety gear or ropes.
Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the documentary details the fearless grit of Honnold, who at one point lived in a van on the grounds of Yosemite.
The film paints a portrait both of Honnold’s raw athleticism and his ability to deal with the fear that comes with extreme climbing.
Honnold told AFP he is “afraid of dying, just like everyone else”. For him, climbing is as much about managing fear, containing it and using it to propel himself forward as it is about the sheer physical challenges.
Two lessons can be gleaned from the success of The first is that compelling cinema that takes extreme sports as its subject must seek to convey the human determination behind the outlandish undertakings of its subjects, rather than relying on sheer awe at the feats they accomplish to drive the story forward. The physical feats are important, to be sure, but they are never the whole story.
This is not to say that the outward pursuits of extreme sports athletes are not in themselves commendable or impressive, but rather that they are only part of the larger picture. The motivation that drives them and enables them to overcome the fear of risking one’s life is something all humans have in common.
The age of online video streaming has taken much of the shock value out of extreme sports. The internet is full of daredevils willing to undertake seemingly foolish stunts, but what the instant gratification media lacks is the ability to tell the real human stories behind the daring endeavors of extreme sportspeople.
Cinema is much more capable of telling these stories, and the success of is a testament to the fact that they have an audience