(Yicai Global) Oct. 10 -- Allen Zhang, the creator of China's biggest social media app WeChat, has won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship team event with professional partner Haoting Li, making them the first Chinese pair to win the prestigious golf tournament.

The pro-am duo were 11 under par in the Oct. 7 final round, scoring 61 at the Old Course, Tencent Sports reported. They teed off on the seventh hole in a shotgun start used to speed up the competition so it could end before bad weather was forecast to close in on the legendary St. Andrews course in Scotland.

Zhang, 49, is a senior vice president at Chinese tech titan Tencent Holdings and was the man behind its WeChat app, the software which now boasts more than a billion monthly active users and has changed the way Chinese people live.

WeChat started as a mobile messaging program, but now provides mobile payment, ride-hailing and bike-sharing services, and even lets users buy flight and rail tickets. It had earlier said that it plans to use golf to enhance its brand image around the world.

Zhang and Li, who wore a WeChat cap at the event's award ceremony, wound up with a final score of 253 (-35, 67, 64, 61, 61) over the four-day competition.

Editor: James Boynton