Like too many tour pros, the guy leading the PGA Championship after two rounds is not above letting his clubs do the talking. What makes Li Haotong …
Like too many tour pros, the guy leading the PGA Championship after two rounds is not above letting his clubs do the talking. What makes Li Haotong stand out from the crowd is what one of those clubs says about him. “HAOTONG IS THE MOST HANDSOME MAN IN CHINA,” reads the stamp — in red capital letters, no less — on the back of Li’s 60-degree wedge. While that remains open to debate, the fun-loving 25-year-old is definitely the first Chinese player to hold the lead after any round in a major championship, thanks to a bogey-free 65 Friday that left him two shots clear of the field at 8-under 132. Any doubts Li has enough guts or firepower to contend on the weekend at a toughening TPC Harding Park course should have been vaporized when posted shot 63 in the final round of the British Open over a similarly cool, windy Royal Birkdale layout three years ago to finish third. “He plays pretty much all guns blazing,” said Adam Scott, Li’s playing partner in the President’s Cup matches last December, “and when it comes off, it’s really good.” The more relevant question is whether Li, who spent much of the layoff caused by the COVID-19 pandemic back in China, can play consistently enough to hold off a pursuing pack chock-full of major winners and top-tier young stars with considerably more experience in the game’s biggest events.
