Meet The Caddy Team at Vattanac Golf Resort Enhancing the Golf Experience
The caddy team at Vattanac Golf Resort in Cambodia, is just one of the exceptional parts of the golf experience you will enjoy whilst visiting. We asked Golf Operations Manager, James Durkin to share a little more about the Caddy Program and introduce us to just a few of the superstar associates he works with.
The all-female Caddy team at Vattanac Golf Resort has grown over the last 12 months to align with increasing traffic to the golf course and more tourism. With a rapid increase in associates, our comprehensive onboarding and training program has been put to the test, giving the new associates the skills and knowledge to deliver an exceptional customer experience.
The training program, led by the Caddy Master and supported by the Caddy Leaders is comprised of 3 main elements; Language, Practical and Theoretical training. Caddy’s generally spend their first 2 weeks becoming familiar with the facility and learning about the core values of Vattanac Golf Resort and Troon.
The first 2 weeks of the program focus on becoming familiar with Vattanac Golf Resort and Troon and then we move on to classroom based learning and practical on-course training. During the 3-month program, new Caddy’s are also encouraged to attend both English and Chinese Language classes which are held weekly by our L&D team, an element of the training program which we believe is key to not only their personal development but also aligns with our service standards as we look to welcome more tourism in the coming years. Currently 30 of our Caddy team can hold basic conversations in Chinese and over 50 can communicate well in English.
Experienced Caddys continue to receive training; on average a caddy will spend approximately 4-5 hours with our customers and by default becomes an incredibly powerful ambassador for the resort. We believe it’s important to invest in our people to give them the skills to provide the best possible experience to every golfer. With that, we also provide monthly golf lessons with our Head Teaching Professional, Rory Tinker, and have introduced an associate golf tournament schedule, which in its last edition was won by Yin Ravy, one of our incredible Caddy Leaders!
We asked some of the Caddy’s about their role, and what they love about Vattanac Golf Resort.
Ravy Yin, Caddy Leader 53
Q. What’s your favorite part of the Caddy training?
A. I really enjoy the English classes as they help me to caddy for international guests. We have a lot of people coming from other parts of Asia and Europe, and most speak some English which means I can communicate with a lot of people.
Q. Which is your favorite hole on the golf course and why?
A. Hole 18 on the East Course, because it is a really good last hole, with water on the left-hand side and you can see the pavilion in the middle of the lake.
Q. Top tip for playing Vattanac Golf Resort course?
A. Line off the tee is more important than hitting it very far, especially on the West Course. It is easy to hit a good tee shot and still end up in trouble, so it is important to review the hole before the tee shot.
Phalla Sorm, Winner of a “caddy of the month award” in both 2022 and 2023;
Q. What’s your favorite part of the Caddy training?
A. The latest training that we did was how to give more information about the tee shot. We talked about how we can help golfers avoid hazards, and how different golfers’ ability might affect the advice that we should give. It was really useful because I understand more about how to change advice for different golfers.
Q. Which is your favorite hole on the golf course and why?
A. Hole 8 on the East Course is my favorite because it is a short Par 3, which means there is a great chance for a good score for all levels of golfers. It also has the nicest tea house, with a pavilion that looks over the river that runs around the golf course. It’s a very nice place to for guests to relax.
Q. Top tip for playing Vattanac Golf Resort course?
A. Making sure you are confident of the line off the tee is really important, there is quite a lot of hazards and water on both golf courses so picking a good line will help a lot.