Golfer Prayad’s From Nowhere To Riches

I’m not a golfer. Got a single club, a no. 7, somewhere. What can you do with a single club. I’m a kiter. But even as a anti-golfer, Thailand has a great PGA event with a promising Thai twist coming up.

Hua Hin’s Black Mountain Golf Club from March 26th to 29th hosts the Black Mountain Masters 2009. Tiger Wood’s couldn’t make it, but they got Jesper Parnevik – and Prayad Marksaeng.

That’s right, the boy from Hua Hin from humble roots who recently caused a stir until that triple bogey on the final hole at Doral. Now all Thai eyes rest on Prayad who “grew up in poverty,” an AP story tells us.

He was “Sleeping with his 10 or 11 siblings in the upper room of a two-story house in Hua Hin. Prayad is not sure how many brothers and sisters he had, only that three of them died – one before he was born, another in a car accident, a third drowned.”

“His daily routine was to drive a three-wheel taxi from 4 am until 10 am, before going to Royal Hua Hin Golf Club to caddie. When he finished 18 holes, Prayad headed to the train station to sell vegetables.”

“The highlight of his day came late in the afternoon, when the club manager allowed caddies to chip and putt.”

“Prayad made his first golf club himself – a piece of metal attached to a bamboo stick, with a used bicycle tire that he wrapped around the stick for a grip.”

“I could use that one club for a month,” he said, not really articulate in English, through his translator and manager, Pimporn Rojsattarat, whom he also calls “mommy.”

The stick would last him about a month after serving as driver, iron, wedge and putter.

See? Even Prayad started with a single club, maybe a kind of 7.

Recently, at Doral, he was left at 9-under 135, four shots out of the lead, but still in the running for a $1.4 million prize. A prize hard to fathom for a kid who made $3 a round as a caddie.

No more excuses.

And you lad no more nightmare errors.

It’s a home.




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March 25, 2009 | Filed Under Sports & Fun, TTT - Top Thai Things 

Comments

2 Responses to “Golfer Prayad’s From Nowhere To Riches”

  1. Golfer Prayad’s From Nowhere To Riches on March 25th, 2009 10.43 am

    [...] the rest of this great post here – Share and [...]

  2. BangkokDan on March 29th, 2009 9.48 pm

    Way to go Prayad. With a brilliant finish he seems to have made it into the U.S. Masters in two weeks. Congrats!

    Prayad charged up the leaderboard with a last round’s superb 64, meaning he makes it to Augusta.

    BangkokDan

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