The Wind Still Blows: Vietnam Golf's 30-Year Journey from Practice Grounds to the International Arena

Last Tuesday afternoon, I stood on the edge of the 18th fairway at Long Bien Golf Course in Hanoi, watching a group of young caddies collect clubs for the last guest of the day. The sun had disappeared behind the high-rise buildings that had risen from what were once rice paddies, and a gentle breeze swept across the grass, carrying the scent of freshly cut turf. There was no cheering, no television cameras, only the sound of the wind and the whoosh of a club swinging through the still air. I was reminded of a phrase I often write in my articles: "An empty course, the wind still keeps the rhythm for the ball." But today, the course was not empty — it was witnessing a new generation of Vietnamese golf, people I have followed for three decades, from the earliest days when golf was still considered a luxury sport of the elite.

When I began writing about golf in Vietnam in the early 1990s, the entire country had exactly three golf courses. Da Lat Golf Course, built during the French colonial era, was where I recorded the first rounds of Vietnamese golfers — people who taught themselves through foreign books and magazines, who figured out swing techniques through blurry VHS tapes. They had no coaches, no academies, no sponsors. They only had passion and a fierce belief that one day, Vietnam would have a name on the world golf map. Thirty years later, I stood at Long Bien Golf Course and watched young caddies — people born after the Doi Moi era — speaking fluent English with foreign guests, using modern TrackMan devices to analyze their shots, and dreaming of international tournaments that my generation could only dream of in our sleep.

The development of Vietnamese golf has not been a straight-line story. It has had turning points, ups and downs, and moments that seemed like they would end everything. In 2026, when the Vietnam Golf Association (VGA) was officially established, I wrote an article predicting that Vietnam would have golfers competing on the Asian Tour within 10 years. That article was ridiculed by many in the sports community. They said golf was a sport for the rich, for developed countries, and that Vietnam — with a per capita income of less than $1,000 at the time — could never compete. But I saw something they didn't: children herding water buffalo in rural areas, using bamboo sticks as clubs and plastic balls as balls, mimicking the swings they saw on television. I saw pure passion — something that no country, no matter how wealthy, can buy.

The real story of Vietnamese golf is not in statistics or rankings, but in how a generation of Vietnamese people turned a foreign sport into part of their national identity. When Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao — a 19-year-old girl from Hai Phong — qualified for the Women's Amateur Asia-Pacific (WAAP) championship in 2026, I flew back to Vietnam to interview her. She told me she started playing golf at age 12, when her mother — a factory worker — saved 2 million VND to buy her a used set of clubs from Japan. "I don't know if I'm good," she said softly, "but I know I love this sport." That sentence haunted me for years. It reminded me that golf is not a sport of numbers, but a sport of hearts.

The development of Vietnamese golf can be divided into three distinct phases. The first phase, from 2026 to 2026, was the exploration period. Golf existed only in a small circle of businessmen and officials. Golf courses were built but served only a very limited group of people. I remember the early days, when I had to obtain special permits to enter Da Lat Golf Course — which locals still called "the Westerners' course" — and was looked at with suspicion by security guards. The second phase, from 2026 to 2026, was the democratization period. The VGA was established, national tournaments began to be held regularly, and most importantly, golf began to appear in the physical education curriculum of some schools. I remember in 2026, when I was invited to attend a golf practice session of students from Hanoi's specialized high school — an image I never thought I would see in Vietnam. The third phase, from 2026 to the present, is the boom period. The number of golf courses increased from 20 to over 100, the number of amateur golfers increased from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands, and — most importantly — Vietnam began to have professional golfers competing in international tournaments.

But the story I want to tell today is not a story of numbers. It is the story of a March afternoon in 2026, when I stood at Tam Dao Golf Course and witnessed a scene I will never forget. A boy of about 10, wearing old, worn-out clothes, was standing at the edge of the fairway practicing his swing with an old iron club. He had no gloves, no golf shoes, no coach. He only had a club and a ball. But the way he rotated his body, the way he kept his balance, the way he watched the ball fly — all showed natural talent. I stopped and talked to him. His name was Nguyen Anh Minh, 10 years old, son of a tea farmer from the surrounding area. He told me he often climbed over the golf course fence at dawn, before the guards arrived, to practice. "I want to become a professional golfer," he told me with determination, "I want to compete in America." I wrote an article about that boy, and it created a significant stir. A Vietnamese-American businessman read the article and decided to sponsor all of his training costs. Today, Nguyen Anh Minh — now 16 — is one of Vietnam's most promising young golfers, with a top-10 finish at the 2026 Asian Junior Golf Championship.

In the rhythm of transfers, everyone watches the clock, but I listen to the sound of departing footsteps. This phrase of mine, often used in the context of football, also perfectly fits the Vietnamese golf story. When I look at the list of Vietnamese golfers currently competing abroad, I see a young generation leaving their homeland to seek opportunities — not because they don't love their country, but because they know that to develop, they need to go where conditions are better. They go to America, to Thailand, to Japan, to South Korea. They carry with them national pride and a desire to prove that Vietnamese people can compete on the international stage. And they are gradually succeeding. In 2026, golfer Nguyen Thao My — 22 years old, from Da Nang — became the first Vietnamese golfer to earn a playing card on the Epson Tour, the second-tier women's golf tour in America. She had to survive a five-day qualifying round in Florida, competing against more than 200 golfers from around the world. When I called to interview her after her victory, she was crying. "I've dreamed of this moment since I was 10," she said, "and now it has come true."

But the Vietnamese golf story is not only about successes. It also has failures, lessons, and dark corners that few people see. I have witnessed too many young talents burned out by the pressure of achievement, by the excessive expectations from family and society. I have witnessed young golfers quitting midway because they couldn't bear the loneliness of living far from family, far from home. I have witnessed families pouring money into training their children to play golf without any long-term plan. And I have witnessed talented golfers being abandoned because of lack of support from the system. The story of Nguyen Van Hung — a 25-year-old golfer from Can Tho — is a typical example. Hung was considered one of Vietnam's most outstanding young talents in 2026, when he won the National Golf Championship by a five-stroke margin. But then his career began to decline. Without sponsorship, without coaches, without a proper training program, Hung gradually lost his form. In 2026, he had to quit the sport and return home to sell construction materials with his father. "I don't regret it," he told me during a meeting, "but I wish I had one more chance."

A name when sung by the whole stand becomes an address of the heart. In golf, there is no literal stand, but there is a community — a community that is growing day by day. When I started writing about Vietnamese golf, I could count the number of interested people on my fingers. Today, millions of Vietnamese people follow international golf tournaments, hundreds of thousands play golf regularly, and tens of thousands of children are learning golf at academies across the country. This development is not accidental. It is the result of a long, persistent, and arduous process. It is the result of people — coaches, managers, businessmen, parents — who believed that golf could be part of Vietnam's future.

But I also see challenges ahead. The biggest challenge is not infrastructure or finance — those are gradually improving. The biggest challenge is the training system. Vietnam still does not have a systematic golf training system, from grassroots to professional level. Golf academies are springing up like mushrooms, but quality is uneven. Good coaches are scarce, and the best ones are often poached by other countries. And most importantly, there is still no long-term national strategy for golf development. I have raised this issue many times in my articles, but the answer I receive is usually empty promises. "We are building a plan," they say. But that plan has never been published.

The new generation watches the ball with their eyes, I still listen with my ears, and both are ways of loving. When I see young Vietnamese golfers today — people who use smartphones to analyze their swing techniques, who watch YouTube videos to learn from the world's top golfers, who connect with each other through social media — I realize that the way they love golf is different from the way I love golf. But that love is still love. And that is the most important thing. I remember once standing at Da Nang Golf Course and watching a group of young people in their 20s filming videos of each other, each performing a perfect swing to post on TikTok. They weren't competing, they weren't following any specific training program. They simply loved golf and wanted to share that love with the world. And I realized that, no matter how different the expression, the love for this sport is what connects us all.

Looking to the future, I believe Vietnamese golf is standing at a historic opportunity. With economic development, with growing interest from young people, with increasing support from businesses, and with the initial successes of pioneering golfers, Vietnam could — within the next 10 to 15 years — have golfers competing in major tournaments, perhaps even competing for major titles. But that will only happen if we address the fundamental challenges: building a systematic training system, creating a healthy competitive environment, and — most importantly — nurturing the pure passion that created the Nguyen Anh Minhs, the Nguyen Thao Mys, and thousands of other young golfers who are practicing day and night across every corner of the country.

The recorded wind from that year still blows through me whenever the course is empty. As I stood at Long Bien Golf Course that afternoon, watching the young caddies collect their clubs, I remembered an afternoon in 2026, when I stood at Da Lat Golf Course and watched an elderly golfer — a French-Vietnamese man — make his final putt of the day. He missed that putt, and I could see the disappointment in his eyes. But he just smiled, picked up his ball, and said to me: "Golf is a sport of patience, young man. Today may not be my day, but tomorrow will be a new day." Thirty years later, I still remember that sentence. And I believe that, with patience — with the belief that tomorrow will be a new day — Vietnamese golf will continue to develop, will continue to create memorable stories, and will continue to prove that nothing is impossible.

An empty course, the wind still keeps the rhythm for the ball. And as the wind blows across Vietnam's golf courses today, it carries the voice of a new generation — a generation writing new pages in the history of Vietnamese golf. I just hope I will still have the strength to witness those pages being written, and to tell the next generation about the early days — the days when Vietnamese golf was just a small dream in the hearts of a few sports lovers.