How many golfers do you need to produce a champion?

The population of Ireland is approximately 6.4 million. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland and just under 1.8 million live in Northern Ireland.

for a nation with 1.8 million people, these stats are phenomenal...

ADL Live Score

no wonder the rest of the world are in awe.

what do you think are the success factors?

DGman

my humble 2 cents:

1. Natural talent - physical attributes / natural ability / ball sense, co-ordination, etc

2. Interest - I think in singapore, level of interest in golf is quite high.

3. Support & accessibility - I think support for sports in sg is improving but for golf, access is quite limited. We don't have the numerous public courses (which can be really nice) for people to just hack around without handicap/PC, etc. Singapore's courses are all very crowded. Of course, there are Malaysian courses but quite inconvenient.

4. Viability - In Singapore, golf and professional sports in general is not so viable because of high opportunity cost.

cheers!

there are supporting factors like availability/affordability of practice/playing rounds to kids, excellent youth coaching, world class courses bla, bla, bla.

but I think it may boil down to this: that golf is a common sport for the people and professional golfer may be considered a good profession to have by the northern irish folks/society.

Brazillian/Argentinian kids dream about becoming the next Pele/Maradona
Chinese kids want to be the next Yao Ming or Yang Yang
American kids want to be MJ or Tom Brady or Tiger
Spanish kids want to be the next Rafa or Seve
Swedish kids want to be the next Borg.
Aussie kids want to be the next Thorpedo or Norman
Korean kids want to be the next Se Ri Pak

So do their parents, they support their kids to be the next star. In fact, most of them need their kids to be succesful.

When that happens, paired with facilities/youth support system, then you can see the country relatively has more success in a particular sport.

IMO

Hunger to win.
National & individual pride.
Provide for family.
A point to prove to the world.

it could also be by total random chance.

e.g. Fiji has a multiple major winner. I dont know how many golfers are in Fiji but I guess not by much nor I think it has anything to do with Vijay's success.

I'm interested in Taiwan golfing scene. Very tarely talked about but now they have Yani and back in the eighties, they almost have a Masters winner (forgot his name).

What's different/similar between Taiwan and Northern Ireland?

pushslice wrote:

it could also be by total random chance.

e.g. Fiji has a multiple major winner. I dont know how many golfers are in Fiji but I guess not by much nor I think it has anything to do with Vijay's success.

I'm interested in Taiwan golfing scene. Very tarely talked about but now they have Yani and back in the eighties, they almost have a Masters winner (forgot his name).

What's different/similar between Taiwan and Northern Ireland?

Those countries probably do not have players who bullied a 12-year-old girl leading by 1 stroke until she cried, lost by 1 stroke, came home and swore never to return to golf.

Imagine if Yani or Rory were bullied like that at 12 years old and dropped out.

Its the environment... in sg.. gov here only keep asking us to study hard & work for others...

They taught us to get a job... but other place teaches their people to build a career...

A career can be groom from your interest... whereas job is just 8 to 5 to kiss xxx to the people who pay u...

where to practise
- go driving range..all full
- go greens (no $$ and sponsors..plus full of paying exclusive members)
- go executive course (cost same as real cousre in JB...meaning expensive)
- go open land beside HDB, ppl call police/post at stomp/yahoo forums etc

end of day despite all that, when a person finally made it to the pro level, get public commenting how they embarrased Singapore bu playing bad....all this while dont have sponsor throwing equipment and $$, good support from local clubs, to a potential good player...

sad to say, not worth the effort.....

In Singapore, I can see that the best althete rarely compete in the pro level....they simply got other things that their parents or they think is better for them. In other countries, most parents dream of their kids turning pro..the kids all dream of nothing but turning pro....

of course the Irish are very hardy and survivors. our nearest equivalent will be the Koreans.

its in their culture to be tough and live like there is no tomorrow. its all part of their history and how they are brought up to provide for their families.

having said that do you know how many Irish diaspora are there round the world?

DGman

mox wrote:

my humble 2 cents:

1. Natural talent - physical attributes / natural ability / ball sense, co-ordination, etc

2. Interest - I think in singapore, level of interest in golf is quite high.

3. Support & accessibility - I think support for sports in sg is improving but for golf, access is quite limited. We don't have the numerous public courses (which can be really nice) for people to just hack around without handicap/PC, etc. Singapore's courses are all very crowded. Of course, there are Malaysian courses but quite inconvenient.

4. Viability - In Singapore, golf and professional sports in general is not so viable because of high opportunity cost.

cheers!

My take....Passion, Believe and Commitment to Win!

Juat one,you just need to give tiger woods pr status

Sorry , out of date. Maybe luke Donald

i presume you are aware North Ireland with a population of 1.8 million produced the top 3 players over the weekend.

DGman

DGman, i work for a huge korean company and i can tell u tat their culture CONFIRM will not produce the best golfer in the world... U can see that many good korean golfer r US PR..

But for sure they can produce get YES MAN worker... that's why korean r still a little behind japanese...

But i still like KJ & YE!!! Ha ha ha... they do asian proud!!!