Vietnamese Golf: When the Fairway Still Hungers for a Beat

I stood at the edge of the 18th fairway, where the final floodlights of the tournament had just gone out, and watched a 14-year-old boy still diligently practicing putts in the darkness. His caddie – also his father – held a phone flashlight to illuminate the putting line. There were no applause, no television cameras. Only the sound of the ball dropping into the cup, echoing like a lonely drumbeat across an empty course. That is the image I have carried through 17 years of following Southeast Asian golf, and it became the starting point for this article about a golfing nation searching for its collective rhythm. The context I want to establish is not the glamorous international tournaments that Vietnamese golfers are conquering. I want to talk about the layer beneath – local golf academies, 9-hole practice courses in provincial towns, and families entrusting their entire future to a sport still relatively new in Vietnam. Over the past five years, the number of golf courses in Vietnam has grown from 30 to over 60, according to the Vietnam Golf Association. But that number does not reflect the full reality: most new courses are located within resort complexes serving tourism, not for developing the local golfing community. Meanwhile, Thailand – where I was born – has over 250 golf courses and a youth development system backed by the government since the 1990s. This disparity lies not just in the number of courses, but in how people perceive golf. In Vietnam, golf is still seen as a sport of the elite – a stereotype I have watched crumble through the story of that 14-year-old boy. His father – a former construction worker – sold his family's only motorbike to buy a second-hand set of clubs for his son. They wake up at 4 a.m. every day to practice at a public driving range where entry costs only 20,000 VND. What I have realized through dozens of similar stories: Vietnamese golf does not lack talent, but lacks a system to nurture that talent. While young Thai golfers have a clear pathway from academies to professional tours, young Vietnamese golfers must stumble their way forward, find their own sponsors, and often give up before they can reach the top. I recall an afternoon at Da Lat Golf Course, where I met a group of five young golfers from central provinces. They had no personal coaches, no gyms, no nutritionists. But they had something I rarely see in expensive academies: absolute patience. One of them, Nguyen Van An, 19, designed his own training regimen based on YouTube videos. An told me he watched Rory McIlroy's swings over and over, then recorded his own videos and compared every wrist joint. No sensors, no TrackMan – just an old phone and the meticulousness of an apprentice. An's story reminded me of the phrase I always keep in my profession: "The fall in Indonesia did not cost me my career; it taught me how to rise in silence." And I believe these young golfers are learning to rise in their own way – not flashy, not loud, but steadfast. What the media often overlooks when mentioning Vietnamese golf is the role of the amateur golfing community. While professional tournaments attract only a few hundred spectators, grassroots tournaments in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi can gather thousands of participants. I spent three months following an amateur tournament at Thu Duc Golf Course, where golfers of all ages – from 12 to 70 – competed in a festival-like atmosphere. What I observed was not just great shots, but how they talked about golf as a way to connect family and friends. Many people play golf not to win, but to spend time with their fathers, or to teach their sons about patience. Golf here is not a sport of achievement – it is a language of communication between generations. The voice of the community is never noise; it is the drumbeat of the match – and in Vietnam, that drumbeat is growing louder. But there is a paradox I want to expose here: the rapid development of high-end golf courses is creating an invisible barrier to sustainable growth. When a new 18-hole course is built at a cost of millions of dollars, green fees often reach several million VND – a figure out of reach for most Vietnamese. Meanwhile, low-cost public driving ranges are being gradually reduced due to increasingly scarce land in major cities. I witnessed a practice range in District 9, Ho Chi Minh City, closed in 2026 to make way for a luxury apartment complex. Hundreds of young golfers lost their training ground and had to travel over 30 kilometers to find another one. This is a systemic issue, not just a story of a few individuals. 2026 taught me that an empty field means the leader must speak more – and I am saying this as someone who has followed golf development in several Southeast Asian countries. I want to offer a counter-intuitive perspective: perhaps Vietnamese golf does not need more high-end courses, but rather investment in public practice ranges and community academies. Look at Japan – a country with over 2,000 golf courses but still maintaining hundreds of public practice ranges with fees of a few hundred yen. This allows children from ordinary families to access golf from a young age, creating an endless talent pool. Vietnam could learn from this model, but it requires a shift in mindset from both the government and investors. Instead of building luxury golf resorts to serve tourists, they need to see the long-term value of developing the domestic golf community. I have followed hundreds of golf matches over 17 years, from major tournaments to amateur events in Vietnamese provinces. And I have realized that what makes the difference between a developed golfing nation and one that is still finding its feet lies not in the number of courses or the amount of investment, but in whether the community feels they belong to the sport. In Thailand, I saw children playing golf on empty plots with homemade clubs. In Indonesia, I saw young caddies dreaming of becoming professional golfers. And in Vietnam, I see fathers waking up at 4 a.m. to take their children to practice. These are small drumbeats, but when resonated together, they can create a symphony. The question is: will those in power have enough patience to listen to that drumbeat, or will they continue chasing glamorous contracts while neglecting what is truly nurturing the future of Vietnamese golf? As I left Da Lat Golf Course that weekend, the 14-year-old boy was still practicing putts in the darkness. His father had turned off the phone flashlight, but he continued hitting balls by feel. I stood there for another 10 minutes, and I realized that Vietnamese golf does not need a superstar to save the sport. It needs thousands of boys like him, who are willing to rise in silence and hit balls in the dark. Because a golfing nation does not die when it lacks money or courses – it dies when it loses the collective heartbeat of the people who believe in it. And that heartbeat, I can hear it, is growing louder on Vietnam's fairways.