Golf's latest entrepreneurs... and both are still at school

Watch: How the Dubai Chinese Golf Association was formed Video Credit: Harry Grimshaw, Gulf News

You might find most teenagers playing computer games or chatting to their friends on their tablets in their free time. But here in Dubai there are two school boys who have become entrepreneurs in the golfing scene.

Ji Li and Leo Wang have created their own golf society, the Dubai Chinese Golf Association (DCGA).

The two teenagers have managed to balance their studying at school with setting up the DCGA. The reason behind it was the lack of similar groups for them to join within the Chinese golfing community.

Now in their second year of the association, the boys are hosting their golf day the Fast Way Chinese Golf Challenge & the Chinese Junior Golf Invitation both being hosted simultaneously at Arabian Ranches Golf Club. The adults competing on the 18 hole championship course, and the juniors the nine hole par 3 course.

“So today at Arabian Ranches we have the inaugural event of the Dubai Chinese Golf Association. 32 adults playing today, and about 24 children, so 56 in total,” said Ji Li.

Sport - Golf — The Dubai Chinese Golf Association Image Credit: Harry Grimshaw, Gulf News

“Golf as you know is very important for networking and we also have a junior division here so the juniors can get better at golf. Its competitive golf and something competitive is always good for juniors and adults. Networking and getting to know people in the future is always good.”

His business partner Leo then explained more about how they got the DCGA off the ground, “Ji knows quite a few golfers and the management here at Arabian Ranches golf club, so we found it quite easy to communicate with the management and the participants to organise this event.

“We have got a lot more sponsors this year so it has meant we can organise a larger event and incorporate more participants into it. Everyone is here to have a great time and compete with each other. We have some prizes and at the end of the day they are going ot enjoy the pretty big dinner, so everyone is going to be happy.”

The boys are both determined to work together to still keep an emphasis on growing the game for all abilities and at the same time keep it fun for all who join.

Ji explained, “It’s very inclusive. Even if you don’t win you are here to have fun. For adults we have a gross and a net score. If you win gross that’s great, but you always want to win the net score. Then for juniors we didn’t do gross and net because we thought that would be way too may prizes for not that many people.”

Leo then continued “My vision when I started this non-profit with Ji is of course to genuinely promote youth sports here in the UAE and Dubai in particular so I aim to develop the DCGA over the next few years and have more events, more exciting prizes, hopefully get more sponsors to be able to move to different golf courses and potentially organise more specific divisions as well, not just according to their age but their skill set as well. I also aim to develop this organisation into different sports but that’s for the future!”