For Asians, it’s child’s play
There is a thing about Asian kids these days: they sure know how to take a swing at you!
Golf is increasingly becoming child’s play. This really had not been the norm for a sport long considered a fashionable little elitist sport.
Asian children (and their parents) are adamant in proving that that notion is, in all truth, out of fashion.
With golf looking to make a debut in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, there has been this resurgence in interest in the sport. It is the Asians who seem to be making the news these days and Asian women particularly.
The Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour has seen a significant rise in the number of Asian women competing for the top perch.
All four majors have been bagged by these dominant women. Just the past 12 majors have seen nine Asian victories. It will come as news for many of you people out there that of the top 100 women golfers the world over, sixty are Asian!
Most golfers now, and particularly the women, begin while still very young. Parents play that pivotal role in nurturing their child’s talent with dreams of grandeur of their own.
Lucas Hodreal, a 6-year old Filipino, competed in this year’s Kids Golf World Championship, which had branched out from US Kids Golf Foundation earlier.
He performed surprisingly well for a rather young participant of the Malaysian tournament. It helped of course that his father had him training for golf when he was barely two years old! From the get go? We think so.
''I like golf because I get soft drinks and get to play iPod in the car,'' he said later. He idolizes current world no. 1 Rory McIlroy, and hopes to emulate him, hopefully when he is older.
Of course, he does not have to be an adult to cause ripples. Guan Tianlang, a mere schoolboy not even past his fifteenth birthday yet, went down the history books as the youngest player to ever qualify for the US Masters.
Tianlang was introduced to golf the old fashioned way and began playing aged four. His circle of opponents rapidly expanded to beyond family and friends.
He won world junior titles by 11 shots before he was ten. Well before he was out of high school, the young Chinaman from southern Guangzhou teed off in April at the US Masters to the applause of the world’s top golfing communities.
The Philippines sees a junior golf tournament almost every week now. The country seems to believe in the golfing dream as representative of the middle working class and not just the wealthy and well-off.
Singapore too follows suit, preparing young talent well ahead of the Olympics in four years’ time.
Malaysia’s biggest banking corporation, Maybank, sponsored golf academies for juniors throughout the season.
Myanmar, as it throws off the yoke of military despotism and opens up to the world for the first time is, increasingly, becoming fond of the game.
Chan, a coach at one of the many junior academies said:
''In Asia, many people see golf as an elitist game but the rise of Asian stars in the game is slowly changing that perception. Green fees are still cheap in Myanmar, and there are many talents here in Asia”.
Today’s golf may be dominated by players in countries it originated, but the future seems to belong to Asian rising stars, where they ask not who the current world no. 1 is, but who will be. Asian kids look like they have the answer.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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