Macau: Accolades continue to flow for the venerable Hong Kong Golf Club (HKGC). Just days after completing the successful staging of the inaugural LIV Golf Hong Kong, HKGC officials were celebrating once more at the Asian Tour Awards Night, held at the Wynn Palace in Macau.

On The International Series – 10 elite level events that are integrated into the Asian Tour schedule and provide a pathway onto the LIV Golf League – the Hong Kong Open got the nod as The International Series Tournament of the Year.

Permanent home to the Open, the Hong Kong Golf Club won the vote as Players’ Choice Course of the Year, along with Al Mouj Golf – the popular club on the stunning Muscat coastline that hosts the International Series Oman.

With regard to the Asian Tour Rookie of the Year Award there was only ever one candidate, Taichi Kho, a HKGC Ambassador.

In winning the World City Championship at the Hong Kong Golf Club last March, Kho become the first player from Hong Kong to win on the Asian Tour. He also shone at the Volvo China Open, chipping in for an eagle on 18 to tie for second.

Those performances helped him end the year in ninth place on the Order of Merit (OOM). For good measure, he also claimed the individual gold medal in the Hangzhou Asian Games, which was another first for Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Andy Ogletree’s dominant 2023 season saw him receive arguably the most-coveted award of them all, the stamp of approval by his peers, as he was handed the Kyi Hla Han Award for the Player of the Year on the Asian Tour.

The American won both the Asian Tour OOM and The International Series OOM in runaway fashion. After a final count of a players’ poll was conducted, Ogletree was overwhelmingly confirmed as the winner of the Kyi Hla Han Award.

It was the first year that the award had been named after Han, who passed away in 2022. Han was a former Asian Tour OOM champion who later became the regional circuit’s Executive Chairman.

Said Cho Minn Thant, Commissioner and CEO, Asian Tour: “It was a wonderful year for Andy, fittingly coming during the season when we named the prestigious Player’s Player of the Year Award after one of the Asian Tour’s most-celebrated luminaries, Kyi Hla Han.”

The Asian Tour membership also cast their vote in favour of the star-studded season-opening PIF Saudi International powered by Softbank Investment Advisers as The Tournament of the Year.

Cho said: “The Tournament of the Year Award is one of the Asian Tour’s most prestigious accolades – especially as it is an emphatic vote of confidence from our members.

“We first staged our season-opening event at the PIF Saudi International powered by SoftBank Investment Advisers in 2022, when it received rave reviews from our players. It was the perfect start to the year, and this was very much the case in 2023.”

Statistically speaking, the players who featured on the leaderboard across the season also dominated the numbers.

Spaniard David Puig had the best stoke average with 68.25; Ogletree, not surprisingly, topped Greens in Regulation on 77.02%; and Phachara Khongwatmai from Thailand had the measure of the greens with a medium of 27.85 putts per round.

A hot putter also helped Phachara make the most birdies. He recorded 293, although his compatriot Sadom Kaewkanjana matched him, to share the honours in that category.

Korean Lee Seung-taek was the biggest hitter of the season with his average drive reaching 326.98 yards, while Indian Gaganjeet Bhullar hit it straightest off the tee, finding 81.09% of the fairways.

The magical short game of Thailand’s Poom Saksansin allowed him to win the Scrambling section, getting up and down 67.24% of the time.

*The Hong Kong Golf Club is a Facility Member of the Asian Golf Industry Federation.