One is a 45-year-old former paratrooper from Thailand who took up golf by fastening the discarded head of a 5-iron to a bamboo stick. The other followed a more conventional path in the sport, although as recently as 15 months ago, he still believed that the game’s biggest events were out of reach for a golfer like him from India.

This week, the winding roads of Thongchai Jaidee and Anirban Lahiri converge at the Presidents Cup, a meeting that could not be more timely.

As the biennial golf team event comes to Asian soil for the first time, Thongchai and Lahiri are among five Asian-born pros set to tee up for the International squad, illustrating the broadening of the game’s horizons on the continent.

“It means a great deal, and not just to me,” said Lahiri, 28. “It means a great deal to the people in Asia, to the people back home in India.”

He added that “to be part of something historic like that is extremely special.”

The Asian contingent also features Hideki Matsuyama of Japan, 23, and Bae Sang-moon of South Korea, 29, as well as Danny Lee, 25, who is a New Zealander but who was born in Incheon before his family emigrated when he was 11.

via Golf Is Coming on Strong in Asia – The New York Times.