HONG KONG — At 4 a.m., while much of Hong Kong is still asleep, Elmer Saban is already getting ready for another long day at the Southeast Asian Amateur Team Championships at Fanling Golf Club.

He takes a quick shower, checks every club in Brittany Tamayo’s golf bag, makes sure everything she needs is in place, then quietly leaves the hotel room. There is no fanfare — just another early start and another day of doing what needs to be done.

For four straight days, this has been Saban’s routine: coach, guardian and trusted companion rolled into one. Before Tamayo steps onto the first tee, Saban has already been at work, making sure the young golfer can focus on the only thing that matters when competition begins — the game.

At 49, Saban has put his touring career on pause — although he still dreams of returning to the tour — to focus on guiding the careers of several young players, including Tamayo and his own son, Jared.

Two years after joining Brittannika Golf Club in Tupi, Cotabato, the Davao-born pro has found a new sense of purpose.

It was not the dream he nurtured when he first started hitting balls with a club made from bamboo at the age of 11. But in many ways, it is still the next best thing.

He grew up in a small community inside Apo Golf and Country Club in Davao City, a place that produced some of the country’s greatest golfers.

Like many boys who grew up inside the course, Saban would sneak out late in the afternoon to play when the players were gone. They hit balls they had collected around the course and honed their skills by watching and imitating the golfers they saw every day.

Saban said he played junior golf only once, in 1992 at Manila Golf and Country Club — the first time he had ever ventured outside Davao. He remembered qualifying for the event and enduring the grueling two-day bus ride to Manila.

He turned professional in 2007 after passing the qualifiers held at his home course. It was only after becoming a pro that he finally had a golf set of his own.

Saban earned his biggest paycheck in 2011 when he figured in a three-man playoff with Frankie Miñoza and Rufino Bayron at Wack Wack Golf and Country Club.

Needing money at the time, Saban convinced Miñoza and Bayron to split the prize money among themselves, receiving about P260,000 each. Miñoza eventually won the playoff after Saban three-putted the second extra hole and Bayron hit out of bounds on the first.

It took another two years for Saban to break through. He beat the late Cassius Casas by one stroke at Splendido Golf and Country Club for a P200,000 payday.

Saban never won again.

His playing career was interrupted when he agreed to serve as personal caddie to Korean-American Micah Shin on the Asian Tour from 2016 to 2017.

In 2021, John Paul Tamayo, Brittany’s father, invited Saban to the family-owned Brittannika Golf Club in Tupi, South Cotabato. His decision to accept the invitation would prove to be a turning point in his life.

Three years later, the community where Saban grew up was gone. Apo Golf cleared the course of the small houses that had stood there for decades, displacing caddies, workers and their families who had long called the golf course home.

But few people know the family connection behind Saban’s journey.

He is the grandson of Ben Arda, one of the country’s most revered golfers.

Yet unlike his legendary grandfather, Saban has largely traveled his own road in the sport — quietly building a career that has taken him from junior golfer to professional, from touring player to caddie, and now to coach.

Now, after a lifetime spent chasing the game, Saban is giving back what golf once gave him.

And perhaps that is his greatest legacy — not the tournaments he won, but the players he helps find their own way.