Triumphant golfers from Korea, Thailand give a glimpse of the Asian Century

Joo Mee Kim of Korea won the LPGA Tour’s SBS Open in Hawaii over the weekend. She beat 22-year-old Soo Young Moon, also of Korea, in a playoff.

Korean Charlie Wi won the European Tour’s Malaysian Open on Sunday.

Michelle Wie, a Korean-American, is the most promising young player in women’s golf. Before Wie, another Korean named Grace Park was probably the most promising.

Why are Korean golfers becoming so prominent in the game today?

I can only relate a personal experience I had recently in Thailand. I was at a driving range, doing my usual impeccable job of spraying drives all over the lot. Hitting next to me was a tiny little 6-year-old Korean girl in pigtails. Her father stood behind her and watched intently.

This little girl had a golf swing that I could only dream about. It was perfection. She swung so beautifully that in between my shots, I kept turning to watch her hit. Nearly every shot was crisp and straight, and always the follow-through was like ballet.

After the little girl hit two buckets of balls, she strolled with her father to the practice putting green. When I finished hitting, I followed them over to the putting green to observe.

The father had brought along a big bag of balls for his daughter to putt with, and he arranged the balls in a circle around the hole from a distance of about four feet. The little girl spent roughly 30 minutes putting from that distance until she was making almost every putt. Then the father arranged the balls a foot further from the hole. What really impressed me was the girl’s remarkable concentration and patience. Most kids would get bored, but not this one. She was really into it.

Clearly, this man was grooming his daughter to become a professional golfer – to be the next Se Ri Pak, or Grace Park, or now Joo Mee Kim.

The fact that there’s big money to be made in golf hasn’t escaped the huge populations of the Asian countries, and now they’ve got dozens of role models to inspire them. I think it’s obvious that we’re going to see more and more great Asian players competing for spots on all the golf tours.

I’ve already written about the wonderful Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand. But there are at least six more Thai men and another half-dozen Thai women who are touring successfully. The same thing is happening in Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.

Golf takes discipline, concentration and patience – character traits that Asian cultures tend to reinforce – and golf doesn’t place as big a premium on size and strength as many other sports do. Asians adore soccer, but they see with their own eyes that they can’t compete with Europeans and South Americans because of size. Golf is another story.

It’s easy to foresee that with golf developing fast in China, it won’t be long before we’ll see dozens of promising mainland Chinese players, too.

Experts predict the 21st century will be the Asian Century.

We’re seeing it already in golf.