"We got to the ninth hole – the one that goes up the hill – and two guys from the clubhouse came up to us asking if they could go ahead. 'No problem', we said, but one of them looked really familiar. On the tee I said to him, 'You look a lot like Henry Cotton'. He replied, 'I am, son', and off he went."
After completing college, O'Neill travelled to Paris to work for the Marshall Plan, the United States-led European recovery effort. Enjoying his days in the French capital, he would play up to three times a week at Saint-Cloud, a parkland layout in the suburbs.
"It was like a dream come true," says O'Neill. "To be in Paris and later Spain – to play at these great courses. I was invited to play the French Open, which I did, but I didn't progress far."
Promotion – O'Neill was an accounting major and a bright spark to boot – meant he was sent to Germany, which unfortunately meant rather less golf. Although he was to get that in Ireland – his next port of call and his ancestral home, – where he regularly teed it up at Portmarnock, which he describes as "a fantastic golf course".
Later, in 1954, after a spell at law school in the States, O'Neill was sent by the US Government to Saigon, where he became a member of the now defunct Club de Golf Saigon. "I was married there and renting a nice place across from the eighth hole," he remembers. "It wasn't much of a golf course, but if you're a real golfer, you're happy playing in a little dirt track."
It was then that the entrepreneurial O'Neill started his own business.
"I only had US$3,000 and started my own trading company. Hell – people in Hong Kong today will spend that in a night out but at the time it was a fair amount of money."
Success came quickly after he became the agent for a well-known pharmaceutical brand in the States.
"There are moments in your life where you look back and say, 'that was the one – that was the turning point' ... that was it," he says.
With the troubles in Vietnam, O'Neill turned his attention to Hong Kong, where he became a resident, started a factory and joined Shek O.
"Things were different then," he says. "Shek O was – and still is – a lovely club, with a lovely membership. But it was far more austere. 'Tiny' Munro, a gigantic Scotsman, was the chairman and he believed the club should be run like they are in Scotland. It was decidedly lacking in creature comforts."
Times have changed and O'Neill, who has five children spread all over the world, is still a regular face at the club. Although he's now up to an 18 handicap and has had to battle hip problems of late, he says he's still capable of shooting his age –which at Shek O, with its par of 65 – is easier than it might be at other clubs, he admits with a grin.
As we make our leave from what has been the most convivial of lunches, O'Neill gently nudges my arm and says: "Never let go of your golf – because nothing gives you as much socially, physically or mentally as this game. There is nothing more pleasurable."
I nod in agreement. His words are spoken like a true aficionado.
