HE COUGHED up $15,000 in co-sponsorship for a local professional golf event and won $500 in prize-money.

Crazy, you might think.

But Poh Eng Teck would still have been pleased even if he had finished out of the money in the event at Tering Bay in Batam in November.

Because his sponsorship and participation were just to give local professional golf - so sagging over the last two years - a boost.

Eng Teck, 55, lives and breathes golf. And his passion for the game has no limits.

After all, he comes from the famous Poh family, of whom seven had represented Singapore over the years at various tournaments in the region.

Eng Teck is the third of the Poh family, the others being Eng Huat, 59, Eng Soon, 57, Eing Chong, 52, Eng Toon, 50, Serene, 47, and Eng Wah, 45.

And he is one of the directors of Poh Brothers Golf, who manage The Toa Payoh Driving Range, the Queens Golf Range off Margaret Drive, and Tering Bay Golf and Country Club in Batam.

Passion

Sipping a cold drink at the Toa Payoh Range last week, Eng Teck reflected on the Pohs' golfing passion, candidly stating from the offset that 'we know little else, but golf'.

Not surprising though.

For their family home for almost 20 years in the Sixties and Seventies was only a chip away from the 17th green of the Singapore Island Country Club's Island course.

'My father was running the drinks stall at the halfway house and my uncle was the course superintendant, so we were naturally immersed in golf from a very young age,' he confessed.

He added: 'Despite being literally on a golf course, we had little opportunities to play because we were not members. But we improvised by playing with sticks and rubber balls.

'Of course, we occasionally sneaked in at one of the holes when no one was around, and played that particular hole.

'We also constructed our own make-shift green and practised.'

Of the seven, only Eng Wah plays competitive golf, occasional earning a spot on the Asian Tour as one of the top-six players on the local Order of Merit.

Eng Teck too plays sometimes, and with brother Eng Wah, he will turn out at the Accenture Champions of Champions event next week at Laguna Masters.

But the rest of the members of the Poh family are also full-time into golf, as instructors or either working at Toa Payoh or Margaret Drive, two locations run by the Poh brothers.

The Pohs also have two cousins who had played for Singapore, namely Ee Kiat and Emma.

Family

The Pohs are the golf equivalent of the popular Quah family in soccer.

Five brothers, namely Kim Beng, Kim Swee, Kim Siak, Kim Lye and Kim Song and three sisters, Theresa, Doreen and Rosa, wore national colours during the period spanning from the late Sixties to the early Eighties.

Eng Teck said that the Toa Payoh range will re-open officially this Sunday after some extensive renovations.

And he expects the 90 bays to be full during weekends now that golf is picking up fast in Singapore.

Singapore Professional Golfers' Association president M. Murugiah, who also comes from a golfing family - brothers Balraj and Siva were good players and uncle P.M. Samy had represented Singapore as an amateur - paid tribute to the Pohs.

'They have done so much for Singapore golf. And they are still contributing. And Eng Teck has been tremendously supportive of the SPGA activities.'

The Pohs are a special breed, a family that plays together, works together and stays together.