What does it take to start a Golfing Nation?

I have always heard about how the Thai's started their young kids into golf. I hear the love of locals giving time and their efforts to help young kids into golf. Sharing their passion, skills and discipline. Some these Thai's does in support of the club and they dont get paid by the child's parent. The is so much passion and objective that their drive is to be the best.

I only have 1 word....RESPECT.

Why cant Singapore have these...a Golfing Nation? Or may be the question is that, are we too kiasu or kiasi that we lose overall objective of having to start one.....Or are we too commercial minded to ever think of one...

well,,,,,it starts with having more public courses and competitions.....

that is why we had the lo-hei game, the GR monthly game, the ASS games, the occasional 'Make Duval feel-good game' etc etc

All these will help folks like me to have a remote chance to make it to the GR Senior Tour....

when tat happens, I will bring my grandchildren to experience the tour and they then in their gen or next will give hope to a golfing nation.

By golfing nation do you mean the country can produce many successful professional golfers?

I think it starts with the public's mindset.

World class quality comes primarily from thousands of hours put into the craft. Talent of course, but I believe its not the primary driver.

Once the community realizes that there are many ways to go to Rome i.e. good academics are not the ONLY way to success then they will let their kids spend more time on the range, on the course and pay the costs to play tournaments

For a country of 4million plus, Singapore has enough physical facilities and top class coaches to produce pro golfers.

but if by golfing nation, you mean many more residents take up the sports then we just need to convert more private courses to public where its more affordable to play. However, given its land scarcity, the land is probably best used for other economic or social purposes than for sports as a hobby.

its starts with this forum......


so to all our forum brudders and sistas............ let me hv the honor to see your face and swing during the upcoming GR games....for each of you will be our ambassador towards to road to a golfing nation...

FOR THOSE WHO ABOUT TO GOLF, I SALUTE YOU ....!!!!!


@ Mod: good idea for slogan in next game....huh?

I believe if we are just talking about more residents taking up the sport, singapore has come a long way in doing so. 12-15 years ago when i was a junior golfer, we could play on the golf course anytime (using keppel as an example) even during CNY we could play 36 holes back to back simply because there was no one of the golf course.
Fast forward to today. I tried to slot in as a 1-ball on the weekends and i realised theres a waiting list of like 10 ppl before me. So definitely you can sense that the course is more packed because more ppl are actually picking up the sport.

as for producing professional, its a mindset that we got to change first. Not many parents are willing to spend money to groom their child to be a sportsman/woman.
Even if so, half the attention would definitely be still be chasing the paper qualification.
To change the mindset i think we need a really successful true blue Singaporean sportsperson to make it big. Then it will crack open the idea that it could be possible to make a career out of sports.

I have a colleague who was an olympic swimmer. but even still, academics was still more impt in the end.

It would be great if we as a country could produce top class golfers. We could. But more time is needed. Not too sure if we would see it during our generation though.

I think it's too difficult for land scarce Singapore to get enough people interested and dedicated to golf. It's difficult, expensive and time consuming to play on the course.
Maybe we should invent some new form of golf like range golf where we can compete seriously for long distance, accuracy and trick shots. Than maybe enough people will be excited about the real thing.

To me, a golfing nation is more than just having top class players, but programs that reaches to the mass. And these programs that explorer and give opportunities for kids. Programs that cultivate golfing at the young age and help them to socialize and build character & discipline. And these doesn't have to be for the rich....so much so its free.

So we need to give support to justin, timmy, edgar, marc and other aspiring pros for they may be those who can open the public's eyes

alvin btw, could you beat s70b when you were both junior players?

in a country where even the top 2 pros have to pay for green fees what do you think?

In UK, they have golf unions with very clear objective of promoting the sports, finding talents and finding resources for these talents. In Singapore, you are either in sports school or very much on your own. there is virtually no chance for the kids who comes from average families.

so you may end up with a bunch of spoilt kids with bad attitude and and even poorer game but believe me when i say they think they are all Singapore's best.

one thing is for sure, either the sports psychologist have done a pretty good job or they have just gotten ahead of themselves. being confident is one thing but being blind cocky is another.

at a young age, its not difficult to tell the man from the boys. i have seen lots of talents in this business and most of the time, like all the post before me, the system (education, commercial, funding, etc) gets into the way of nurturing golfing talents.

Most of the top thais junior today comes from well to do families. but i have seen very successful players who comes from modest families and they continue to do well because parents there do not congregate to talk about their children school grades.

DGman

In the early days of singapore or malaysian golf, at least being a caddy there is a chance being spotted by clubs and given venue to growth. These have kinda died off. If its all about money and commercializing the game, then where is the passion for it. Sooner or later, it will be a competition between who is richer in the game rather than who is better at the game.

We need to change the mindset of policy makers in our country!

Bro,

Nothing to do with policy maker. I think its more like SGA needs to do more hard selling and make sports facilities like training, range and equipment more accessible to average families.

"What does it take to start a Golf Nation?"

MONEY!

But I am sure if a few bro here were willing to offer their time FOC. there will be takers.

To start a golf nation you need a sound amateur program. Also a commitment to a program like The First Tee, (in the US) that allows for underprivileged kids to participate in golf and what it can offer, is essential. Golf is always going to be a popular game, whether that means it will be for the wealthy and some other portion of the population or inclusive of many more remains to be seen.

Sidenote on the part of Amateur golf:

I went on the SGA website when I first got over here to see if there were any amateur events that I might be able to play in...Well there are after some internet research, but navigating that website was like an exercise in "how not to design a website". Everything I tried was a fail. I neither could not do a thing, nor find any information on that site. Maybe I was going about it the wrong way, but I figure that since I am college educated and fairly intelligent I can make my way around a website....well not the SGA one.

For me...access to golf courses/coaching in some way, many amateur events for those who are a little more passionate, even golf classes in school as part of phys. ed, etc. There are so many ways to get golf into the culture...it is just a matter of wanting to do it.