Vietnam Golf: The Problem Is Not Money, But Systemic Thinking

I believed in the textbook for 5 years – World Cup 2026 shattered it all. But today, I want to talk about something even more absurd than football: Vietnamese golf.

A golf course bearing the name of a major real estate corporation, located in the outskirts of Hanoi. On a May morning in 2026, I stood at the 1st tee box, watching a national youth tournament. A 14-year-old boy, slender build, his swing smooth beyond his years. He drove the ball 280 yards, dead straight. Coaches applauded. But when I asked him if he planned to turn professional, he shook his head: "I don't know. My parents said learning golf is just to get a scholarship to study abroad."

That was the moment I realized an absurdity greater than the lack of practice facilities or money. We have talent, we have increasingly good infrastructure, but we don't have a system to turn talent into a career. And this story isn't unique to golf. It's a common disease of Vietnamese sports when it comes to professionalization.

Context: Telling numbers

According to data from the Vietnam Golf Association (VGA), as of late 2026, there are about 100 operating golf courses nationwide, nearly double the number in 2026. The number of amateur golfers with membership cards is estimated at around 200,000. In the past 5 years, Vietnam has had golfers competing in Asian tournaments, even winning medals at the 2026 and 2026 SEA Games. Nguyen Thao My, born in 2026, once ranked in the world's top 200 in the women's category. Le Khac Dung, a young talent, has had impressive rounds in events on the Asian Development Tour.

But if we look at the youth training system, the picture is no longer rosy. The number of golf academies with structured training programs for children can be counted on one hand. Most golf courses only care about commercial services, with no strategy for nurturing talent. National youth tournaments are irregular, small in scale, and lack competitiveness. More importantly, there is no clear pathway for a young golfer to go from amateur to professional.

I have witnessed too many cases like that 14-year-old boy. Talent exists, but there is no mentor, no competition system, no real sports scholarships. They stop at "playing for fun" or "getting achievements for study abroad scholarships" – a personal escape, not a national strategy.

Core Analysis: Why money doesn't solve anything

Many will say Vietnamese golf lacks investment. I disagree. Over the past 10 years, hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into building courses, buying equipment, and organizing international tournaments. But what's the result? We are still on the fringe of the Asian golf map. Meanwhile, Thailand – a country with a similar economic condition – has dozens of golfers in the world's top 100, and their youth training system is considered one of the best in the region.

The difference lies not in the amount of money, but in systemic thinking. Thailand built a complete value chain: from public golf academies with low tuition, to a national amateur tournament system held monthly, to a talent support fund with a clear budget. They have well-trained coaches, separate physical and psychological programs for each age group. All run by a strong association with real power, not an administrative body.

In Vietnam, we have fragmented pieces. We have good golf courses, a few good coaches, a few talented golfers, but no connection between these pieces. Golf courses have no incentive to train youth because they make money from wealthy members. The association lacks resources and authority to coordinate. Sponsors only want to attach their names to big tournaments, not invest long-term in a 13-year-old boy who might succeed 5 years later. And the media only cares about international tournaments, ignoring the youth training story.

I remember interviewing a national golf team head coach. He said bluntly: "I have 20 years of experience, but I don't have the right to choose players. Young golfers come to the national team when they are 18 or 19, but they have never played a truly high-pressure match. They don't know how to handle pressure, how to manage a game. We have to teach them from scratch." That is a terrible waste of time and human resources.

Contrarian Angle: The problem lies in culture, not strategy

Digging deeper, I believe the problem of Vietnamese golf lies not in strategy or finance, but in sports culture. In Vietnam, sports are still viewed as a hobby, an extracurricular activity, not a respectable career. Parents are willing to let their children play golf to get study abroad scholarships, but never accept their child becoming a professional golfer. They see it as a risky gamble, not a systematic investment.

The fall in 2026 didn't stop me – it changed my path. When I was still a 400m runner, I was once criticized by my own coach for being "undisciplined" because I liked experimenting with different starting techniques. But I realized one thing: Vietnamese sports culture doesn't accept experimentation, doesn't accept failure. We only want quick results, want medals immediately, but don't want to invest in a long-term process.

This leads to a paradox: we have many young talents, but no foundation for them to develop. We have many golf courses, but no regular tournament system. We have many people who love golf, but no real professional community. And when a young golfer fails at an international tournament, we turn to criticize them instead of looking at the system that failed.

Takeaway: A revolution in thinking is needed

Every statistic has the potential to lie; my job is to catch it. And the numbers of 100 golf courses, 200,000 amateur golfers, and a few dozen professionals – that's a telling number about wasted potential. We already have sufficient material conditions to develop professional golf. We just lack one thing: a systematic mindset that treats sports as an industry, treats golfers as national assets requiring long-term investment.

The question is not "how much money do we need," but "do we dare to accept a different development model, where failure is part of the process, where young golfers are properly trained from age 10, where golf courses have responsibility to the community instead of just selling memberships?"

I believe the answer lies in building a grassroots tournament system, where every child can compete weekly, where coaches are standardized, where sponsors are encouraged to invest long-term. That is a revolution that doesn't require much money, but requires a change in perception. And if we don't do that, no matter how many more golf courses we build, Vietnamese golf will remain stagnant.

The empty stadium in the summer of 2026 taught me to listen to the match with heartbeat, not sound. And in that heartbeat, I hear a bigger question: do we have enough courage to break old thinking patterns, to build a truly professional sports foundation, or will we continue to deceive ourselves with rare medals and hollow praise?