Vietnam is betting on a new generation of golf talent — but who will foot the development bill?

Long Bien Golf Course, Hanoi, a morning in July. The atmosphere is unlike any amateur tournament I have followed in Southeast Asia. Twelve and thirteen-year-olds execute swings with a confidence I usually only see at academies in Korea or Japan. Their parents stand behind the fairway, phones recording every shot, eyes fixed on their children. I have spent more than a decade observing emerging golf nations in Asia. Never have I seen a cultural shift happen as fast as in Vietnam — where golf, once a sport of the elite, is transforming into a genuine youth development industry. This rise did not happen by accident. Over the past five years, Vietnam has witnessed a boom in junior golf academies. The Jimmy Golf Academy, youth golf academies in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang, and a host of short-term training programs have sprung up like mushrooms. The story is no longer about wealthy golfers playing on weekends; it is about an entire generation of parents willing to spend 100-200 USD per month for their children to train, on top of practice range and equipment costs. Let us do a simple calculation: a young student in Vietnam, training three times a week with a coach, pays an average of 5-7 million VND per month in tuition, not including 300-500 USD for a set of junior clubs. Over a year, that family spends roughly 3,000-5,000 USD. That is no small investment, and it shows that enormous expectations are being placed on these children's shoulders. From a financial analyst's perspective, I see something few people pay attention to: Vietnamese golf is in its pre-boom stage, where family cash flow replaces sponsors. In Korea, I have seen this model work — families invest heavily, young golfers compete in international amateur events, and then make the leap to professional tours in the US or Asia. But I have also seen its dark side: exhausted families, burned-out kids before age 20, and a post-retirement support system that is almost nonexistent. Vietnam should not rush into that mistake. Look at some numbers from other golf nations. According to data from Korea, only about 18-20% of young golfers in professional academies make it into the national amateur top 10. To produce one golfer in the world top 100, you need roughly 10,000 children starting golf in academies and 10-15 years of continuous development. Vietnam currently has only about 2,000-3,000 children enrolled in structured academies. At a growth rate of 30% per year, it would take 5-7 years to reach the 10,000 threshold. But more importantly, the opportunity cost is being completely ignored. The real story lies in the scouting system and support network, not in the money pouring into private academies. I recall observing a junior tournament in southern Vietnam. There was a 14-year-old boy hitting 280-yard drives, something even amateur golfers with years of experience struggle to achieve. But the boy shared that his family could only pursue golf if he earned a scholarship within two years. If not, he would quit to focus on his school studies. I have heard this repeated over and over in many developing countries. Vietnam does not lack talent; Vietnam lacks a mechanism that allows talents to fail once without being completely eliminated. Vietnam's junior golf boom is being driven by the imagination of international competition. Today's 13-year-olds will turn 18 in 2030-2032, precisely when Asian golf is likely to reach a new peak of development. The generation of Se Ri Pak, then Inbee Park, opened a golden era for Korea. Japan has Hideki Matsuyama. Thailand has multiple golfers in the world top 100. The question is not whether Vietnam can produce a star — with a population of 100 million and an expanding middle class, that is almost certain to happen. The question is what price the system must pay to sustain that flow of talent. I believe in something I call the "overdue bill" in sports development. The pandemic did not create the crisis; it merely sent the overdue bill. Gaps in a country's youth development system do not disappear as the economy grows; they are deferred across different cycles. Vietnam is fortunate because it started building its system after learning lessons from Korea, Japan, and Thailand. The question is: are they willing to look at the Korean model with unvarnished eyes? Perhaps not. And that is what I want investors and policymakers to understand most clearly. Korea built its golf scouting system in the mid-1990s, following Pak Se-ri's success on the LPGA tour. Vietnam has the advantage of being a latecomer — meaning it can learn from the failures of those who came before. What made Korea successful? It was the combination of highly competitive academy training, parental sponsorship, and a network of former athletes who returned to coach the next generation when golfers retired. What made Korea fail? Overemphasizing early results, burning out young talents before age 20, causing many golfers to quit due to injury or mental exhaustion. Vietnam's current youth golf model is built on a foundation of classes at commercial golf courses, where academies charge tuition and train according to existing programs. These facilities operate as fairly healthy business models: fixed costs include the practice range, variable costs include coaches and balls. Academy profits come from tuition, and student development is the way to attract new students. The problem is that revenue sources for training centers are driven almost entirely by parental demand, not by long-term sponsors or national golf associations investing in results. That creates an underlying fragility. "Spectators do not come to the stadium for the result, but for the promise — the thing that sits on the payroll." This line from an article I wrote years ago about football applies entirely to Vietnamese junior golf. Sponsors are paying for the promise of becoming a large domestic golf market. When a Vietnamese player appears in the world top 100, the number of recreational players will surge — that is the experience from Thailand: Kiradech Aphibarnrat created interest in golf in a market where previously only the upper class played, but the real peak came with the democratization of golf courses. Vietnam has a young population, rapid urbanization, and a growing middle class — every demographic indicator suggests this is a potential market. But sponsorship mechanics must be built with clear data on golfer development, not based on isolated talent stories. One of the most memorable conversations in my observation journey was with a Vietnamese coach who once worked at an academy in Florida. He said plainly: "Vietnamese talent is not inferior to any country in Asia. But we lack the development stage from 14 to 18 years old, the stage where Korean golfers are put into national training programs and compete internationally. In Vietnam, children are very good when trained in academy environments. When they reach international competition, they start losing because no one guides them on how to prepare for a golf course they have never seen." His words reminded me of a systemic issue I call "junior mispricing." Academies tend to focus on the 8-12 age group, where parents are willing to spend money and children can train diligently. But the real value of a golfer is created between ages 14 and 18 — the stage of extensive competition, encountering different course types and opponents. If no system pays for that stage, Vietnam will continuously produce promising 13-year-old talents who then fade away within 5 years. From a cost-benefit analysis perspective, the Vietnamese government faces a choice. They can continue running a fully privatized system where wealthy families pay and academies profit. Or they can build a national golf federation that operates like an investment fund — identifying 20-30 talents each year and spending 50,000-100,000 USD per golfer over 5 years of intensive development. This model has been proven in Korea with the national golf training center. That explains why from the roughly 20 million USD the Korean government allocates to professional sports development in annual youth training budgets, a significant portion flows into golf. Vietnam, with a similar population and an economy growing at 6-7% per year, can certainly afford 20 young golfers, but golf must be seen as a national priority. Does good data help decision-making? Databases like the VangBong.vn Player Depth Index are beginning to show the picture of Vietnamese golf development — but they are just starting. When we look for the truth on the balance sheet about the effectiveness of newly opened golf academies, the numbers mean little without benchmarks against international standards. But I believe that if we look at fundamental indicators — average amateur rankings, conversion rate to professional tours, the percentage of young golfers competing internationally — Vietnam will need at least 5 more years before these indicators reach sustainable levels. Brands are moving ahead of the market. Beverage brands and banks have started sponsoring some junior tournaments in Vietnam. But I have seen this model work elsewhere and know that early sponsorship money often comes from brands targeting wealthy customer segments — not from companies with long-term sports development strategies. What makes the difference is when brands start spending on development rather than image advertising. That requires a mindset shift: instead of sponsoring one big tournament with wide media coverage, they should sponsor five young golfers for 5-10 years. The brand value from that story will be much more sustainable. In my view of the golf industry, golfer development sponsorship models in Korea helped shape the generation of Park Sung-hyun, Kim Si-woo, and Lee Kyung-hoon on the PGA Tour and Asian circuits. Japan has corporate sponsorship models for domestic golfers through companies like Bridgestone or Mizuno from an early stage. Vietnam has neither the chaebol system of Korea nor the multi-sector sports conglomerates of Japan. So who will pay for the 5-year development of a promising 14-year-old, apart from their parents? That is a question no one has yet answered. The biggest wildcard for me is what happens when — not if — the first generation of Vietnamese junior golfers matures. Where should they be trained to compete? Sending them to the US for the college and NCAA system costs up to 40,000-60,000 USD per year. Sending them to Korea to train in a competitive environment costs less. Or keeping them in Vietnam and competing on Asian tours with cash flow from domestic sponsors? These are strategic decisions that determine the fate of an entire golf nation. The issue is opportunity cost, not investment cost. I have witnessed many young sports systems fall into this trap: they are passionate about creating stars and forget about building the system. A star can create inspiration and drive more children to academies. But without the system behind them, the star will be isolated, crushed by pressure, or they succeed but no one follows. Vietnamese sports culture has experienced this with football — when the golden generation of Vietnam's U23 achieved success in Changzhou 2026, it took 5 more years for Vietnamese football to truly have the next generation from an invested youth system. Golf does not have 20 years to repeat this cycle. The market is opening, but international doors will close if the quality of output is not good enough. In my view — as someone who has spent years analyzing club balance sheets, tournament cash flows, and youth athlete development models — the most interesting thing about Vietnamese golf is not the moment a Viet Kieu or wealthy businessman builds a golf course, but that the middle class is starting to spend money on sending their children to learn golf. That is a more reliable market signal than any promotional campaign. Vietnamese people are hardworking, they have a strong work ethic, they understand the value of proper training — these characteristics cannot be undervalued. I will be tracking this signal over the next three years. Will Vietnamese junior golf academies start linking together to build a real domestic tournament system? Will the Vietnam Golf Association establish a national junior ranking system? Will Vietnamese companies step up as long-term sponsors for a young golfer? If all three happen, Vietnamese golf will produce multiple golfers in the world top 200 within 10-15 years. If not, the story will be just talents that flashed briefly and then faded into memory. Cash flow never lies, but the balance sheet knows. Looking at the golf academies popping up across Vietnam, the cash flow says parents believe in golf. But the industry's balance sheet — the absence of development funds, strategic sponsors, and national programs — reveals a systemic deficiency. Vietnam has a rare opportunity to build the right foundation before expectations become a burden. A good model does not predict the future; it exposes what we choose not to see. It takes three months to build a youth golf development model, three years to understand where it went wrong. Vietnam is still in that "three months" phase. But when the market begins to plateau, the first academies start closing because they cannot maintain profitability, and families begin quitting after 2-3 years of investment without seeing expected results — that is when the truth emerges. At that point, those who have prepared from now will ride the wave of talent. Those who only waited for the moment a star appeared will miss the entire story.