Regular Vietnamese golfers are entrepreuners and senior government officials who manage to take time from their busy schedule to play golf, though it takes a golfer, on average, half a day to finish 18 holes.
Part 1: Caddies’ hard work on golf course
Part 2: Caddies’ tears on golf course
Part 3: Life outside golf course
Part 4: Golf and Work
The clients at BS golf course include the director of a Hanoi-based telecommunication firm, and a planner for an oil company. They come to golf three or four days a week. Golfers in Ho Chi Minh City prefer Thu Duc golf course on busy days. Having more free time, they go further to courses in Song Be and Long Thanh – some 50kms from the city.
Their ‘tee off’ (starting) time varies from early morning, 10:00am, or sometimes in the late afternoon.
Tuan, director of a state firm in Hanoi, has numbered tags from different golf courses still attached to his bag of golf clubs, proving that he had played golf at the Royal in Ninh Binh, the Montgomerie Links in Quang Nam and at Long Thanh in Dong Nai during his working trip to Ho Chi Minh City.
“I want to have experiences on all golf courses. A nice girl may have her bad characteristics and an ugly woman may have her own good thing,” said Nguyen Dien, a man in his 50s working in the construction industry.
The 19th hole
One weekend, four golfers from Hanoi smartly laid a bet with their four nice-looing caddies -- one of them would use a number 9 club to tee the ball for the last hole, a par three (or maximum three times) to hit the ball into the hole.
If he could send the ball onto green, the area around the hole, he would win and the four caddies would have to buy lunch for the golfers.
That day, the golfers lost, so the men had to buy a feast for the girls in a restaurant.
Later, the caddies understand that the betting is only in order to get the girls with them to have a fun lunch, as the golfers surely know that to win at the last hole, it must be the number 7 club, and not the 9.
Most golfing sessions end outside the course, and it surely takes much more time, even doubling the time needed to play.
Though the Transport Minister Dinh La Thang issued the decision to ban his staff from playing golf in October last year, golfers have continued to complain about the prohibition.
“If golf is banned by the ministry, tennis, drinking and karaoke should be included on the list. If I have power, I will dismiss all those who are working inefficiently, that’s enough,” said a golfer named Cong who runs a private firm.
“Most government officials who play golf are those who steal time,” another golfer added.
Deals worth billions
Caddies are not allowed to reveal the secrets they witness on the course, especially betting for money or business contracts among golfers.
Sitting at the beginning of the course, a golfer struck up a conversation with his caddie, “I am tired today, but come here for business. Normally, it’s not easy to have a discussion with a province’s leader, but on the golf course, it’s quite different.”
During conversations between a garment firm director and a deputy minister on the golf course, the director was heard saying, “Rubbing sun cream to protect your skin”, “Do you get used to this driver club [a kind of golf club]?”
The director was offering ‘intensive care’ to the official and lent him clubs to play with on a day when they took over five hours to finish 18 holes. The government official didn’t play well while the director seemed to be restraining himself.
‘Contracted’ games between businessmen and officials normally end with the former losing, usually blaming it on anunlucky day. That day, the garment tycoon lost VND40 million (US$1,900) to the official.
Such bets are just the tip of the iceberg.
‘Heavy bettors’ on golf course are nicknamed ‘ca sau’ (crocodiles), and can make bets of up to billions of dongs for a game.
A caddie named Tran revealed that those ‘crocodiles’ don’t pay their money on the course, but count them on points to settle outside afterwards.
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