Meet Solongobat Otgonbaatar: The Best Golfer From a Country With One Course

On Thursday afternoon at Te Arai Links, I spent a little time mesmerized as I watched Thailand’s Fifa Laopakdee hit irons into greens that are shaped like rumpled ski moguls. It’s hard to tell right now just how good Laopakdee might be, but he possesses such a silky tempo and a casual grace in his swing that we might be seeing the next great golfer from Asia emerge right in front of our eyes. The defending champ shot a ridiculously good 63 in the first round of the 2026 Asia-Pacific Amateur, and I’m not even sure the score can convey how fantastic it actually was. He was using slopes to work the ball toward difficult pins, and flighting shots into the wind like a seasoned veteran.

“8 under wasn't on my bingo card today, but I was able to pull it off,” Laopakdee said. “It feels pretty amazing.”

As good as it was, I didn’t want to spend my entire day following Laopakdee, or any of the other top players, because I know they’ll be around for the weekend. I will likely be watching them hit golf shots on Sunday under pressure, and for years to come. Instead, I wanted to take in part of what makes the Asia-Pacific Amateur such an interesting event, and follow one of the most unlikely golfers in the field: Solongobat Otgonbaatar, a 30-year-old former bodybuilder from Mongolia. He only started playing golf four years ago, and now he holds a fascinating distinction.

He might be the best golfer from a country of 3.5 million people that has only one legitimate golf course — Mt. Bogd in Ulaanbaatar.

LEADERBOARD: Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship

Mongolia, to further complicate things, also has one of the shortest golf seasons on Earth. Ulaanbaatar, the capital city, is the coldest capital city in the world, with an average temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

“I would say golf season peaks in July and August, but after August the conditions get a lot worse,” he said.

One of the stated goals of the Asia-Pacific Amateur is to promote the game around the world, in places where it hasn’t quite taken a foothold, and Otgonbaatar is a concrete example of that mission. He didn’t start playing golf until he was 26, in part because golf just isn’t on most people’s radar in Mongolia. Wrestling, weightlifting, judo, and boxing command the most interest. Otgonbaatar says he wasn’t even aware of Tiger Woods growing up.

“The first guy I really paid attention to was Bryson DeChambeau,” said Otgonbaatar. “I really liked his ball flights. And swing wise, I wanted to swing like Rory McIlroy. But the more I studied, the more I liked Scottie Scheffler because I don’t have that good of a swing, but I like that he has a unique motion that has so many good things in it.”

Otgonbaatar — who mostly goes by “Solo” — actually grew up dreaming about becoming the first Mr. Olympia from Mongolia, but he never made it beyond the regional qualifying stage. He attended college at Korea University in Seoul, where he double majored in political science and international relations. But when Otgonbaatar came home after graduation, his father encouraged him to pick up golf.

“He was a lawyer, and he went to a lot of countries where a lot of political people and business entrepreneurs played golf,” Otgonbaatar said. “That’s why he started playing.”

The more he played, the more Otgonbaatar liked it. He started studying swings on YouTube, trying to copy their moves. He had strength and balance from his bodybuilding days, and he gradually applied it to golf.

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“I started hitting balls pretty good on the range and even on the course sometimes,” Otgonbaatar said. “I started to think: Why not? I can repeat these shots every time. If I'm doing it right now, maybe I can do it in later times as well on a course. I wanted to hit more balls and I wanted to become good at golf.”

His friends thought he was being a little ridiculous. Why wasn’t he off looking for a real job? But the more he practiced, the more realistic the dream felt. Otgonbaatar started entering tournaments and even winning them. In August, he won the Mongolia Open in a playoff. That got him a spot in the Asia-Pacific Amateur.

“At first, my friends at first, they were like, ‘You went to a top university and how are you sacrificing your life like this and playing just golf all the time?’ And you know, probably in 30 years, or 40 years, I'm going to probably have some regrets,” Otgonbaatar said. “But now I’m getting sponsored by companies in Mongolia and they’re talking to me about being the face of some things.”

Otgonbaatar has a lot of great golf shots in his arsenal. He can pound the ball off the tee, and when he missed right and ended up down in the sand on the fifth hole, he hit one of the best short-game shots of anyone in the field, banging the ball into the slope and skipping it forward until his ball kissed off the pin and stopped an inch from the cup. He made three birdies on the day. But he also experienced the kind of growing pains you’d expect from someone who is still figuring out the nuances of the game. On the 14th hole, he made a nine when he took three swipes at a ball he couldn’t get out of a waste area. He finished with an 85.

“It’s such a mental sport,” Otgonbaatar said. “I’m still thinking about that hole, being 5 over on one hole. I was already kind of feeling down about making double bogeys on two holes, and I was just stressed. My mind kind of went blank. Thankfully my caddie gave me a pep talk and I was able to birdie the last hole. That felt good.”

Mongolia has been sending golfers to the Asia=Pacific Amateur since its inception. Otgonbaatar is actually the 13th Mongolian golfer to appear in the event, but growth of the game back home has remained slow. Otgonbaatar is one of the first Mongolian golfers to try to utilize social media to generate interest. He was one of the few golfers in the field who had the name of his home country stenciled onto the back of his golf polo, almost like he was wearing a team jersey.

“I would say Mongolia is a developing country, not a developed country,” Otgonbaatar said. “We have stability, but also some financial issues. And overall people are struggling financially. Golf is seen as an elite sport where many privileged people play, and I think because of that, I think golf is not really popular in Mongolia and not developing that much. But I'm trying my best to also encourage people to start playing golf because now I think in 2026, golf is not that expensive. We can play and have fun and enjoy it on the weekends and stuff. And also on social media, I try to encourage a lot of people and I post a lot of things about golf.”

There is some hope in Mongolia that additional golf courses could help with tourism. Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia have all experienced a massive golf boom over the past 30 years. But Mongolia has a long way to go. I was actually under the impression that Mongolia had three golf courses based on some hasty internet research I did before talking to Otgonbaatar, but over the course of our conversation, Otgonbaatar made sure to correct me.

“Mt. Bogd is really the only 18-hole course,” he said. “The other two, I would say, are basically like a field where you can hit shots, and maybe they cut the grass. And one of them just closed. So we have maybe like one and a half courses.”