Melbourne, Australia: What a year it’s been for Vietnamese teenager Nguyen Anh Minh.
In April he became the first player from his country to win the Faldo Series Asia Grand Final. The following month he won an individual bronze medal at the Southeast Asian Games.
In August, he was part of the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation (APGC) team that defeated the European Golf Association in the Ryder Cup-style match play Bonallack Trophy in Spain. For good measure he had the distinction of contributing the half-point that ensured the APGC team retained the trophy.
In the penultimate week of October, his stock rose even further when he finished tied for seventh in the 14th Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship (AAC). It was the best performance by a Vietnamese in the region’s premier amateur tournament, the previous record being set by Chi Quan Truong in 2016 when he tied for 46th.
“It feels nice. A big tournament with a top-10 finish. I can’t really ask for more,” said 16-year-old Anh Minh, who opened with rounds of 73 and 77 at Royal Melbourne, before returning back-to-back 70s on the weekend.
“I heard so much about Royal Melbourne before I came here. People would come and tell me stuff like how difficult it is and how you need to play a different kind of golf to do well here,” said Anh Minh, 161st in the World Amateur Golf Ranking at the start of last week, the highest ever position for a golfer from Vietnam.
Anh Minh credited his attendance at the AAC Academy at Thailand’s Amata Spring Country Club as a key factor in his outstanding display in Australia.
He said: “That was a great preparation for Royal Melbourne. Obviously, Amata Spring is a very different golf course but the coaches that we had showed us videos of Royal Melbourne holes and how we needed to do things slightly differently here.
“They made us chip up the hill with three-woods and seven-irons. And I can see now why we needed to learn those shots.”
Particularly impressive was his one-under 70 on day three when conditions were at their hardest. He was one of only four players to break par on the day – a round he classed as better than his career-low 64 in Vietnam.
“That 70 on Saturday was way, way better than that 64. We hardly get any wind in Vietnam, in the northern part. I could take dead aim at every pin and just fire at them. If you are having a good day a 64 is easy to shoot. But to make a 70 here and in the conditions we had with the greens firming up a lot you need to play your best golf. And you need to play very smart golf.
“I greatly enjoyed the round. Those were very tough, brutal conditions. In a way, the greens were tougher than the first day when it was raining and cold and windy. They became rock solid and it was very difficult to hold the ball (on the greens). It is easily the toughest round of golf that I have played so far.”
As with pretty much everything he’s done this year, Anh Minh passed the test with flying colours.
The growing stature of Vietnam as a nation that is producing talented young golfers was further underlined by Le Khanh Hung, who struck individual gold at this year’s SEA Games, when still aged 14.
Like Anh Minh, he acquitted himself well at Royal Melbourne, ending in a share of 24th place on 297.
Also like Anh Minh, he was blown away with the Composite Course.
He said: “It's way too good! I've never experienced anything like this. It's so different from what I usually play. It's a whole different level of golf here.
“I didn't have a lot of expectations coming into the tournament. I just wanted to enjoy the golf course as much as I can – and it was simply amazing … outrageously good.”
