It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Bach Cuong Khang wears several hats for the Vietnam Golf Association (VGA). The Deputy General Secretary happens to head the country’s Rules Committee as well as its Youth Development Programs. He is also the coach of the National Team.
Khang isn’t being greedy, but there are two more hats he is yearning for - one with The Masters logo, and the other with The Open emblazoned on it. And he wants to buy them while accompanying Vietnam’s first-ever player to participate in the two major championships.
“That is the dream for me, and for everyone here at the VGA. I want two pictures on the wall of my office…that of a Vietnamese player hitting a golf shot at Augusta National Golf Club during the Masters, and at one of the great links courses of the world during the Open Championship,” said the 40-year-old.
Khang, a three-handicap himself, started playing golf in 2013 when his event management company was chosen to conduct the inaugural ceremony of Vinpearl Golf Hai Phong club. He thought it would be a good business investment, but like many others, fell head over heels in love with the sport. He has made decent progress himself from being a novice 11 years ago, but the pride on his face becomes palpable the moment you start discussing the rise of Vietnam golf.
“I will tell you a funny-sad story. In 2019, I took my team to the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, and I felt so bad because our players were the only ones who did not have uniforms, or good golf equipment. Those were the days when we would always be on top…if you turned the leaderboard upside down!” said Khang.
“We came back and we promised to make some changes. And it was a moment of great pride for all of us when at last year’s SEA Games in Cambodia, Khanh Hung Le won the Individual Gold medal, Vietnam won the Silver in the Team Championship and Anh Minh Nguyen won the individual Bronze.”
Countries have taken time to evolve in sports, but Vietnam’s transformation has been very quick with the SEA Games result as the best story to highlight the expediency.
There is more tangible evidence of Vietnam’s progress.
Until the middle of 2022, they did not have a single player ranked inside the Top 1000 of the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR). That changed when Nguyen became the first Vietnamese player to break the Top 1000 in June 2022.
In a short space of two years, Vietnam now has six players in the Top 1000, led by the 17-year-old Nguyen at No. 84. Khanh Hung, a 16-year-old, is ranked 191st. The two have also made it onto this year’s International Junior Presidents Cup team and will represent their country at the Asia-Pacific Amateur, along with a third Vietnamese player, Duc Son Nguyen. Duc Son Nguyen, a 17-year-old, served notice of his immense talent when he won the Faldo Series Asia Grand Final in April this year, defeating rising Japanese star Masato Sumiuchi in a playoff.
“More importantly,” adds Khang, “we have a lot of junior players who have started playing golf. In 2022, you could count the number of junior golfers on your fingers.”
Khang needed to resort to his iPad to give the details of juniors in Vietnam today.
“Right now, we have 56 registered players with the VGA in the Under-9 category; 16 in Girls Under-11; 69 in Boys Under-11; 24 Girls Under-13; 78 Boys Under-13; 56 total in Under-15, and 31 girls and 69 boys in the Under-18 category. That’s almost 400 juniors who are now playing golf in the country.”
It also helps that there has been a significant rise in the number of golf courses in the country. In the past two years, nearly 30 new courses have been built, taking the total number to 80. Khang believes that number would rise to 150 in the next three or four years as many are in the planning and construction phase.
Khang said the big push came last year in May following the heroics of the Vietnam team in the SEA Games, and that momentum was doubled when Anh Minh Nguyen finished T-7 in the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship at The Royal Melbourne Golf Club in October, with Le finishing inside the Top 25 – the two best results ever by the country in the Championship.
“The regional SEA Games are very big for us. Vietnam is not a very sport-oriented country, so we are not very good at most sports. And then this happened in Cambodia. I think the interest started rising because Vietnamese people never imagined that we could be so good in a sport that is played internationally,” said Khang.
“And then we did very well in Melbourne and made some more headlines. Those two tournaments changed the way people looked at golf.”
Khang said a key element in VGA’s success is the work they have done with families.
“Like many other countries, the Vietnamese people also think of golf as an elite sport. We had to tell the families that their kids could play the sport. Our success at the regional and Asian level has shown them that here is one sport where we have the chance to even compete with the western countries,” said Khang.
“We started a golf in schools program last year in three schools. In my hometown, we had 50 boys and girls who registered…even if four or five of them become serious golfers, we think we have done a good job. We are now planning to take that program into 10 schools across the country.”
Khang is excited about Vietnam’s chances at this year’s AAC, when it is played in Japan from October 3-6.
“I don’t know if we will have a champion this year. That would be very nice, but what we really hope is two of our players finishing in the Top 15. In a Championship of this caliber, that would be a great result to further build on what we are doing,” added Khang.
“But we have now started dreaming that we can win the AAC one day. And that is very important, because dreaming big is the first step towards making it a reality.”
By Joy Chakravarty
