THE POWER OF TEAM - DEVELOPING 'HOME GROWN' GOLF CHAMPIONS IN INDONESIA

On January 5th 2015 we flew to Jakarta to present a detailed proposal to the Indonesian Golf Association board outlining a 10 year player development pathway for their National Program. 

​At that stage only one male golfer was ranked below 1000 in the world, (historically amateur golfers from Indonesia who did have a world ranking inside the top 1000, were living and competing in the USA.). One of the goals of our program was to develop a golfer from Indonesia (what we called 'home grown') to make it into the top 100 in the world within 5 years

As of April 11th 2018 Naraajie Emerald (39 months) became the 100 ranked amateur in the world. (Naraajie was ranked well above 2000 when we presented our proposal in 2015)
To say that it has been easy would be an understatement given the scale of what we are constructing, and including but not limited to cultural challenges, plus, it has never been attempted before in Indonesia.

​Also, the small size of our talent pool is challenging, we have 30 men (boys) and women (girls) --currently 20 elite players, and 10 who are in the development squad.

They say that luck appears when preparation meets opportunity, and that is definitely the case for us because we would not have been able to do any of the work here in Indonesia without the support of Murdaya Poo, Chairman of PGI (Indonesian Golf Association).

At the presentation of our proposal in January 2015, Murdaya Po listened carefully, asked a lot of questions, and then said to the board, "this is what we need."

He bought into the vision right there and then, and we are still building it.

​There are of course the normal challenges you face, like people (many) not buying into our vision, or throwing stones at it, but with the help of our phenomenal support team who have tirelessly supported us to this point (they know who they are), we have helped some of the talented young golfers in Indonesia to reach higher and achieve more than they (and others) believed they could.

Currently, here are the world rankings of the golfers (the majority of which currently work with us), we have supported to help them become world class amateur golfers.

MEN'S RANK
Naraajie Emerald 100, Kevin Caesario Akbar 375, Jonathan Wijono 429, 
Almay Rayhan 654, Rifki Alam 735, Timothius Tirto 905

WOMEN'S RANK
Inez Wanamarta 259, Mela 429, Tatiana Wijaya 472, Rivani Sihotang 673,
​Ribka Vania 727, Patricia W Sinolungan 845

A phone call in July 2011 was the start of our involvement with the preparation of Indonesian National Teams competing in Team events in the Asia Pacific region. 

The phone call was an SOS after the men’s and ladies teams had performed poorly in the South East Asian Team Championship in Hong Kong in July 2011. 

Indonesia was hosting the South East Asian Games (SEA Games) in October 2011 in Jakarta, and winning medals was a top priority for future government funding, and of course national pride. 

​Over a 4 week period we worked on improving three key areas;
​1. Mental toughness skills 
2. Green side short game skills 
3. Approach wedge skills less than 100m.

The response from the players to the training was excellent, and the results in the tournament was even more amazing. The ladies won team and individual Gold, and the men won team and individual Silver. 

This convinced us that young Indonesian golfers didn’t lack the ability, but had not been exposed enough to high Performance training and coaching methods. Thus, Indonesia weren’t producing golfers good enough to compete internationally - unless their golfers were enrolled in high school or college golf programs. 

We didn’t prepare another team after 2011 until we started building our long term player development pathway in 2015. During the period 2012-2014 Indonesian Teams didn’t perform well enough to win medals in the regional team events. 

This changed in 2015 after 6 months of training and preparation in our program with the ladies winning a silver medal and the men winning the bronze in the SEA Games, held that year in Singapore. Both teams showed tremendous fight back qualities on the last day to overtake the teams in front of them, to win medals for their country.

In 2017 the same medal haul was achieved, but this time we pushed the best team in the South East Asian region Team Thailand for the gold and silver medals. 

And it got better, with the Team Indonesia men shooting a national all time team record of -35 under par in the Putra Cup, and the Ladies also broke their own records with their -21 under par total in the Santi Cup. 

​The Team Indonesia men continued their improved scoring at the Asia Pacific Teams (Nomura Cup) event held in Malaysia in November 2017 and with a combined -17 chalked up their best result in the event, and also beating the Singapore team who were the current South East Asian gold medal winners.

We are super proud of this small group of dedicated young golfers in the Indonesian National Development Program who we work with on a weekly basis.

​We are looking forward to them playing in the Asian Games in August 2018. 

When we get asked by reporters and supporters “what medals can the Indonesian Team win at the Asian Games?” our answer is they train and prepare to win gold (which we have 100% control over) but the ultimate result is not in our hands, it’s in their’s. 

We will continue to post how Team Indonesia is progressing in tournaments, and also in training, leading to up the Asian Games in August playing against some of the best amateur golfers in Asia.

Good Golfing - Lawrie Montague & David Milne

P.s. Want to lower your competitive scores just like our Indonesian National Players? Get our unique practice program that will get you shooting lower scores than you ever have before!