Take a quick walk through a beachfront villa at The Nam Hai, hailed “Best Resort” in the world by Travel + Leisure in its 2008 Design Awards.
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I was just at Danang Golf Club and lucky enough to receive a one-on-one lesson from their new teaching pro, Phil Wright. Phil trained at a David Leadbetter Golf Academy and employs the use of leading edge video technology to analyze his students’ swings.
I’ve been playing golf for about 15 years but, like most amateurs, have never managed to put together the kind of round I feel I’m capable of. But up until I met Phil, I’d never received a proper lesson, either.
DARE TO COMPARE: DGC teaching pro Phil Wright uses video technology to educate his students.
So it was with much eagerness that I approached my session with Phil. What was the experience going to be like? What would I learn? How much better would it make me?
The jury’s still out, of course — I’ve got some practicing of new techniques to do. But one thing’s for certain: I now possess all the pieces to the proverbial puzzle, in the form of a comprehensive, 13-minute video that ‘Dr. Phil’ sent me 24 hours after our time together on the driving range.
In the video (which you’re welcome to download and watch in its entirety), Phil sets me next to three-time Major winner Ernie Els (aka The Big Easy) and explains — via voice-over and illustrations — the discrepancies he sees. I see them, too. And because I do, I now know what I need to work on. That’s exciting. Because it means consistently good golf is finally within reach.
I’m just back from the Asia-Pacific Golf Summit in Bangkok, an annual golf industry conclave where I took the liberty of test-driving a theory of mine: Asians aren’t particularly gaga over the whole links thing.
No harm in that. It’s just that, in North America and Europe, the “dream course” every rich guy is building for himself these days is an indirect homage to St. Andrews: brown, rustic and purposely unkempt in the outlying areas, replete with sand and scrub. In Asia, there are arguably more “dream courses” being built than anywhere else in the world, but they hew to the Augusta National model: green, pristine, manicured and turfed wall to wall.
If you look closely, there are in fact very few proper links courses in Asia, outside Australia and New Zealand, both of which, one could argue, are more culturally European than Asian. On the other hand, Asian golfers have clearly not been exposed to links golf very much, because there are so few of them. Perhaps if they were more prevalent, they’d feel differently.
MASTERS MODEL: Despite its seaside setting, Monty Links is more Augusta than St. Andrews.
All of this is to say, we have very interesting Petri dish here in Danang, on Vietnam’s Central Coast. The Montgomerie Links, despite its name, was clearly conceived on the Augusta model, while its neighbor at Danang Golf Club is about as true a links as we’ve seen built in Asia.
In a couple years, when both are fully matured (Danang GC is less than a year old; clubhouse comes online in January), and there are further golfing choices in Danang (there are half a dozen more courses in planning), I’d like to see a breakdown of exactly who plays where, and why.