Dou's journey an inspiration

Dou Zecheng's journey from pro golf's backwaters to the PGA Tour is inspiring other young hopefuls.

Dou, a 21-year-old from Henan, won the 2016 PGA Tour Series China Order of Merit title to qualify for last year's Web.com Tour, where he and compatriot Zhang Xinjun earned their cards for this year's PGA Tour.

New Zealand's Luke Toomey hopes to emulate Dou's success when he competes in the first PGA Tour Series China international qualifying tournament of the season, which starts on Thursday at Mission Hills Haikou's Sandbelt Trails course on Hainan Island.

The top 15 finishers in the 72-hole tournament will earn conditional exemptions.

The 24-year-old Toomey, who turned pro in January 2017, is confident of his chances as he aspires to follow the path taken by Dou and other players he competed against in his amateur days.

"I played with Dou in the 2013 Asia-Pacific Amateur, so it's awesome to see guys I played against now competing on the PGA Tour," said Toomey, who finished third in the 2016 Asia-Pacific amateur championship in South Korea.

"I also played with Bryson DeChambeau as an amateur, and he's made his mark on the PGA Tour pretty quickly (DeChambeau won the 2017 John Deere Classic).

"It's exciting for me to see guys that I played so closely with do what they've done. It makes getting onto those tours so much more realistic for me."

The top five on this year's PGA Tour Series China Order of Merit will earn spots on next year's Web.com Tour.

"I'm confident going into this week. It's nice to be playing well again. I've had a really good start to this year," said Toomey, formerly New Zealand's No 1-ranked amateur.

"It's all about finding a pathway. The dream is to play in major championships and win those, so I'm going to do whatever I can to get myself start in those events. The PGA Tour Series China is a great pathway to get onto a main tour."

Corey Shaun, 21, and Brandon Mai, 22, also hail Dou as an inspiration.

Shaun, whose parents are from Beijing (Shaun is a transliteration of Xiang), was born and raised in the US, and often played with Dou in San Diego when they were teenagers.

"For a couple of summers we used to play together every day at the same home course, Morgan Run, when we were about 14 or 15," said Shaun, a 2017 All-America Scholar who will graduate from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) in March.

"We'd go out and play in threes or fours with other golfers, including Zihao Chen, and have a good time competing.

"Dou had an awesome progression to the PGA Tour. It's inspiring because I played with him so much growing up. He's around the same age me, and he's already made it this far, so why can't I do that?"

Mai, whose parents moved from Vietnam to California in the 1970s, was a Pac-12 first-team All-Academic in 2015 and will graduate in March, when he hopes to embark on a pro career.

"I played with Dou in junior events in the US and know him pretty well, so to see him have so much success out here and then play the Web.com Tour and now the PGA Tour is really exciting.

"To be competing with him at the same level back then and to see him on the PGA Tour now really gets me motivated," said Mai.