Lu Liang-huan, affectionately known to golf fans around the world as Mr. Lu, died on March 15 of unspecified health issues, the Professional Golf Association (PGA) of Taiwan confirmed. He was 85.
He helped put Taiwan on the golf map when he finished runner-up at the 1971 British Open at Royal Birkdale in England. In his annual year-end retrospective, IMG’s Mark McCormack claimed credit for the nickname “Mr. Lu” while doing his annual chores as a BBC commentator for the Open telecast. The nickname stuck.
Lu, who was competing in his first Open, may have been a virtual unknown but he was easy to pick out of a crowd with his distinctive pork pie hat. Lu endeared himself to the crowds by lifting or doffing his lid before bowing to acknowledge their applause. He had bought the bright blue hat a few days earlier to shade his neck from the sun when he realized the forecast called for unusually warm temperatures.
Mr. Lu, who had served in the Chinese Air Force, dueled Lee Trevino, an old acquaintance from Trevino’s Marine Corps days when the two had played in Okinawa in 1959, to the finish.
“I remember playing him in Taiwan one day and he beat me something like 8 and 7,” Trevino said during the 1971 Open. “He has called me ‘Bird’ ever since because I used to fly the ball past his short drives. He’s always straight with his drives.”
But not on the 18th hole of the final round of the 100th British Open. Lu’s drive sailed into the left rough, tightroping a fairway bunker and forcing Lu to stand in the sand below the ball. From a hanging lie, Lu choked up and took a mighty swing with his 5-wood, falling backward in his finish. His shot hooked into the gallery and drilled a spectator named Lillian Tipping in the forehead. Lu’s ball ricocheted back into the fairway while leaving her concussed.
When Mr. Lu went over to see what happened, his face turned white. Afterward, Lu would go to the hospital to check on her but she had been discharged. The following week at the French Open, a message arrived at his hotel: “Mister Lu, I am OK. Get many birdies this week.” She sent him daily cables wishing him well and he took the title, becoming the first Taiwanese and Asian golfer to win on the DP World Tour. Later, he treated Tipping and her husband to an all-expenses-paid trip to his home country, and in the ensuing years, they exchanged Christmas cards.
Born in Taipei, Lu first was exposed to golf as an elementary-school student after taking a job as a caddie to help his family make ends meet. Unable to afford golf clubs of his own, he carved makeshift clubs out of bamboo and whacked small guavas for balls. He learned the game under the tutelage of H.S. Chen, a famous teacher in Taiwan, and won all over Asia, including his own nation’s Open four times, during a decades-long career spent mainly on what is now the Asian Tour and the Japan Golf Tour. He represented his country in the World Cup several times and pulled off one of the great upsets in teaming to win the title in 1972. (It’s the only time Taiwan has ever won the event.)
Lu won the inaugural Hong Kong Open in 1959, before becoming the club’s resident professional from 1962 to 1964. Lu played an exhibition match in Hong Kong during that time against Arnold Palmer, who was so impressed he invited him to play in the United States, and he played the Masters in 1972. In 2010, Lu was inducted into the Asia Pacific Golf Hall of Fame.
In a Facebook post, Taiwanese PGA Tour pro and Olympic bronze medalist C.T. Pan remembered Lu both for his golfing prowess and as a man “with a big heart, and full of charm.”
“Not only did he have high-end golf skills, but because of his sharpness and coolness, Mr. Lu is the teacher I looked up to most in my childhood,” Pan wrote. “Thank you teacher Lu for your contributions to golf. May you rest in peace.”