MAY 14 — Datuk Wong Sai Wan was never a loud person. But whenever he spoke, in that steady, reassuring manner that somehow had the effect of calming everyone down, people listened. He was one of those rare folk who could command a hall full of people without sounding commanding.
Sai Wan was revered, respected and loved within media and golfing circles. He was your quintessential people person, but wasn’t just a talker. The man could make things happen and some, thanks to an innate ability to think on the fly and the uncountable cable-strong connections he had made – and took the time to nurture – over the decades.
He was the perfect person for the down-up management positions he held in the later part of his career, often putting himself in the line of fire for the occasionally unreasonable pressures from owners and filtering it through in palatable manner to his colleagues – I will not say subordinates, as anyone who’s worked with Sai Wan will know that he regarded everyone, even the rookie reporter or tea lady, as his equals. But one wonders if the burdens that he placed upon his shoulders took a collective toll on his health over the last few years. If so, he did it willingly and with much grace.
I really can’t recall when I first met Sai Wan, who’s just a year older than me but is eons ahead in stature within the media industry. It must have been in the early 1990s when I first started out in sports journalism. That’s roughly half my life but I feel like we’ve known each other since childhood, such was his amazing ability to build bonds.
Even as his career spiralled upwards, Sai Wan remained the same, unassuming person, always trying to squeeze in catch-ups with peers and friends despite the increasingly tight time constraints his lofty later positions placed on his schedule.
I’m still reeling from the shock that Sai Wan is no more. Sure, he’s had more than his fair share of health issues, most recently a stroke, but you somehow expect larger-than-life folk like him to take it on the chin and go the full distance.
Outside of work, it’s hard to believe that subsequent Causeway Cups – that annual matchplay golf game and piss-up with our Singapore counterparts – will be sans Sai Wan moving forward, as he was the driving force behind the event in its early years and had remained a trusted mentor and advisor.
Hard to believe we’ll be having our ‘Golden Not So Oldies’ media/golf industry gatherings from here on without its prime mover and, more often than not, the life of the party.
I last met Sai Wan for a work-related matter at the Malay Mail office just over a month ago and it was, as always, a fun and fruitful catch-up. My last text to him was regarding a planned golf game at Sungai Long in late April, which was to have been his first since the stroke last November but was cancelled presumably due to work commitments.
Guess the game will have to wait, but I’m glad that we kept in close touch all this time. Knowing him, I won’t say ‘rest in peace’ as he’s probably already busy making friends and building bridges with whoever runs things up there, in the typical Sai Wan way.
Good guys do die young … but they never really leave us. — ParGolf
