GOLF IN BOTSWANA NEEDS ITS OWN ASAFA POWELL AND SE-RI PAK MOMENTS AND EFFECTS….

ARTICLE BY: MPHO KELOSIWANG

A story is told of a young South Korean golfer, who moved to the US as a 20-yearold with no English, no family and no friends, just a dream to become the best golfer in the world…my emphasis! She Won the US Women Open Golf Championship in 1998 and sparked the Asian Women Golf revolution. Today Asian women dominate the professional ladies golf circuit. Since 2008, nearly 40% of the major championships on the LPGA Tour have been won by South Koreans. While Asian girls, account for 54% of the top 100 in the Rolex Ranking Women’s World Golf Ranking, 70% of those are South Korean. It is interesting to note that in Asia it is quite expensive to play. Korea is no different and most of their players are not allowed in golf courses until they are of certain competence. Most golf is therefore played in Driving Ranges. If you think golf is expensive in Botswana and access to golf courses in Botswana go to Asia… You will come back with a different perspective…What continue to bother me is lack of traction of the sport of golf in Botswana. Why are we not getting a lot of Batswana getting into the sport? This brings me to another inspirational story in sport… Most people now know that….Sprinting to Jamaican is like religion…The story about Jamaicans become sprint Kings and Queens is however not known by most. Indulge me for a moment to narrate the little I know about the evolution of Jamaica short distance running…Prior to 1999, Jamaica had pockets of brilliance in track and field. However the revolution can be traced back to 1999, when Coach Stephen Francis, together with his brother, Paul and cousin, decided to form the MVP Track and Field Club of Jamaica. They had an ambitious dream, to have Jamaican sprint champions, trained in Jamaica, by Jamaicans and managed by Jamaican. The club aimed to provide high quality coaching which mirrored American college system so that talented athletes would not have to travel to the USA. Of Course people laughed at them, called them dangerously ambitious. Rasmus Ankersen in his book, “The Gold Mine Effect” details how the MVP Track and field coaches used to beg for high school student coaching gigs. Simply because people did not believe in the possibility that Jamaican sprint athletes, can be developed in Jamaica by Jamaicans. Of course, fortune smiled on them, when one of their athlete Asafa Powell, who by the way, was a reject of the athletic programme, broke the 100 metres world record in 2001. The Asafa Powell moment gave the MVP Track and Field Club of Jamaica their break through. This bold and ambitious step reversed a long-standing pattern, where Jamaican sprinters, who were typically poor, ran to get scholarships at American colleges where facilities and coaching were superior, but the surroundings were foreign. Now, with better coaches, most of the country’s Olympic runners train at home and they are champions. As most athlete now understand, staying and training at home can make a difference, in terms of the weather and the support structure. In the case of Jamaica, it appear that coaching, motivation, and hard work might have done the trick.

Here at home, we continue to provide excuses on why we cannot be successful in golf… fair enough, the game suffers lack of access to the school sport system and inaccessibility of the golf clubs to most Batswana Children. However, South Korea has been able to overcome these seemingly insurmountable constraints…Is it because we lack the ambitions of the founders of the MVP Track and Field Club of Jamaican or are our young golfers not hungry enough…The case of South Korean and Jamaica rhyme well with the findings of Angela Lee Duckworth study of successful people…She found that, ”People who accomplish great things, usually combine a passion for a single mission with a unswerving dedication to achieve it, regardless of obstacles and the length of time it take.” Are we a nation of excuses… both at administrators and athletes level…Do we know how to create success and we stumble upon it? Are our athletes hungry enough?

Rasmus Ankersen will ask, “How do you create hunger in Paradise?” It is my opinion that, if we can correctly answer this question we will be on the right track to unlocking the potential of sport in the country, create world beaters and make sport an alternative source of employment for most of Batswana youth…I know we want to create Millionaires…Sport is one of the ways we can create young Millionaires…

I hardly share my stories and experience coaching some of the youngsters I work with as I consider these to be private moments, I however sought permission to share this one from Tharaniitharan Panchalingam…Tharan is going for college in the US next month, he has an ambition of making the college golf team…I started coaching Tharan in 2013, he was a beginner golfer…However he was athlete through and through and according to my observation he had great chance of making his dream a reality. Within two years Tharan had dropped his Handicap from 24 to 3, He was now among the top golfers in the country… Pity he travels on a Sri Lankan Passport otherwise he will have made the Botswana Junior team…However something happened, the relationship broke and Tharan went on his own in the last two years of so…Guess what…He is still playing of handicap 3 and he swing the club like an Octopus…We recently rekindle our coach-athlete relationship, with the sole goal of ensuring that he makes the college team. I am confident he will make it as he has great potential. Why am I boring you with such feeble tales…

The legendary Jack Nicklaus is reported to have said, “If you can beat everyone in your town, everyone in your city, everyone in your state, everyone on an a national level, you’re probably good enough to turn pro”. Under normal circumstances the above detail the progressive step, however there is one fundamental assumption…that every stage there is good quality competition… what if there is nobody to beat…how do you escape an environment that is designed to perpetuate mediocrity? how do you motivate and guide junior golfers to aspire to be world beaters, when all they see glorified and supported by sponsors is the old men and women, who play the game for fun. Where we confuse social sports for elite competitive sport. For a moment, Tharan lost sight of why he played golf, he got caught up in the funk, all of a sudden he could compete and beat his peers and he thought he had arrived…He is one of the best ball strikers in the country. He failed to recognise the difference between our standards and international standards. With the advent of google and abundance of information about the golf swing, he thought he could self-coach… There is only one elite golfer who self-coach… Bubba Watson, he is an exception and not the norm…The danger of such…Is an Octopus swing, frustration and ultimately youngsters quitting the games. As I have indicated above, it is my view that we can achieve success in golf in Botswana in the next 10 years. We already have pockets of brilliance, we have the infrastructure, both physical and coaching and this therefore provide the minimum requirement for such success. What we need now is our Osafa Powell or Se-ri Pak moment…This will rely on the golf union, golf clubs and coaches demonstrating a strong sense of determination to achieve success as they say, “talent flocks to organisation that project a strong sense of purpose”. However the overriding factor for success is the burning desire of the athlete…Those who want it most…