It isn’t always about finishing first. Sometimes, victory is achieved just by being there, taking part. Even more so if you are beating an unprecedented path for a nation where the first course was built as recently as 1996. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Vanseiha Seng of Cambodia, a man with a unique place in the history of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship.
When the 12th playing of this massive continent’s most important amateur event tees off on the Dubai Creek course in the United Arab Emirates this week, Seng—who has a small Koi fish business in his home city of Phnom Penh—will be the only player in the 93-man field drawn from 30 countries who can say he has competed in all 12. Not with any great distinction, it must be admitted. Seng’s best score is a three-over par 73 at the Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore three years ago. And he has yet to make a halfway cut in any of the starts that have so far taken him to China on three occasions, Singapore (twice), Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea.
