Marksaeng: Dodge a snake, find a dream
AKRON, Ohio -- They used to hold the old World Series of Golf here at Firestone, with the flags flying and the bagpipes a-skirling at the introductions, and an interesting exercise in the geopolitics of golf it was. There was once, for example, Bill Rogers, of Texas, marching out to the Union Jack. As winner of the British Open, he was representing Great Britain. And there was little Billy Dunk, who used only odd-numbered balls, representing Australia. And then, of course, you had Jack Nicklaus, Isao Aoki, Bernhard Langer and all the rest. And so the mix went. It was pretty much your standard fare of international golf. There’s some question anyone had even heard of Thailand, much less envisioned a professional golfer coming from there. It was back in those days that little Prayad Marksaeng, who came from a poor family, would slip down the fairway, then duck off into the jungle – talk about rough – and scoot up a tree and perch there, not entirely unlike a bird of prey. Along would come a bunch of Japanese golfers, who had money, and little Marksaeng (this being his last name) would rejoice at those who hit it sideways. Men of means, they would not deign to go poking around in the steaming jungle searching for their stray shots lest they find something else.
“Snakes,” Marksaeng explained through a translator.
“Cobras,” he said, getting specific. “That’s my home course. I’ve got a stick, and I’d just check first if snakes were over there.”
Marksaeng, 43, is a star on the Asian Tour, and he’s the first Thai ever on the leaderboard at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational leaderboard. At that, his name is a strange one to see up on the leaderboard at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, up there with Harrington, Clark, Verplank and the like. He got there with a 4-under-par 66, and only two closing bogeys kept him from tying for the lead with Padraig Harrington, whose 64 was the best round of his shaky season.
Growing up poor in Thailand:
“When I was young, my family had no money, so my parents worked hard,” said Marksaeng, and nothing was lost in translation. The old pain came through. “So I looked at them and I felt like I had to help. So I did that. I was a boxer, also. I went to the train station to sell food, and I went to like a jungle or something like that with my mom to find wood, to make a lot of things at that time.”
He probably didn’t make Thailand’s Ring Record Book, not at 5-foot-4, 160, with hands like a baby. But he hits a golf ball 300 yards. He’s one of 12 children, and has two kids of his own, and now he supports his parents.
On his resume: He’d start driving a three-wheel taxi at 4 a.m., then at 10 would caddie at Royal Hua Hin Golf Club. It was a different world, and an attractive one.
“My house was nearby the golf course, and I walked to the golf course, I saw the people play golf, but at that time I felt that only rich people can play golf,” he said. “I was very interested to play, also. My family was very poor, so to think about making it to play golf is unbelievable. I could not think about that.”
He needed a club. So he somehow made one out of a piece of wood he fashioned into a clubhead, and stuck a bamboo stick in it for the shaft, and made a grip out of a bicycle tire.
“At that time, I hit only one club for the bunker, putting, everything,” he said. “Every week, it was broken.”
Poor kids who fall for the game all seem to have the same story. They find a way onto the golf course. Mostly, they sneak on.
“I cannot play the golf course like a junior or something like that because no one knew that I played golf,” Marksaeng said. “I had to climb over the fence in the evening time. I’d come maybe hole No. 4, No. 5, just play, and then when the guests come, run away, like that.”
Marksaeng was 12 when he first started messing with golf, and 14 when he started playing, and then 19 when he made it to the national team. He’s won nine times in Asia, and early this season he tied for 13th in the WGC-CA Championship, nine shots behind Phil Mickelson. He had tied for the lead in the first round at 65. The world noticed.
“I’m proud of myself that one day, I’ll be in the same group of the star players,” Marksaeng said. “I never thought this could happen to my life.”
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