Meet Ritchie Smith, the WA super coach behind three of Australia’s four Olympic golf representatives

Ritchie Smith is quick to play down his own talent with club in hand, despite boasting a resume many golfers would envy. “I played a little bit, but I was really kind of s…,” Smith, a former State captain at underage amateur level who has also fired a best round of 59 as in competition as a professional, joked to The Sunday Times. “I think they say if you can’t play, coach.” But while Smith has now established himself as one of world golf’s elite mentors, it didn’t come quickly, or easily. He started out earning $12 an hour in the mid-1990s teaching kids before playing competitions on the Australian PGA and pro-am circuit for a couple of seasons while working as a club pro at Melville Glades. After stepping away from playing professionally, Smith landed a role as the State women’s coach in 2005, a job only he had applied for, but one which helped seriously launch his career in the sport. Amid coaching the WA women’s team to a series of national titles, Smith crossed paths with emerging stars Minjee Lee and Hannah Green, and later Lee’s younger brother Min Woo. The trio, who have remained under his tutelage for more than a decade since, will tee it up at Le Golf National next month as three of Australia’s four-member golf team in the elite field selected for the Paris Olympics. It is another major achievement Smith is quick to play down, but one he is proud of, nonetheless. “I guess it’s a big deal but I’m not making a big deal of it,” he said. “I’m just doing my job, and this is just a by-product of doing a good job. I’ve coached Minjee since she was 11 or 12, Hannah since she was 12 and Min Woo since he was 14. “This is the most important event for us for the year. The Olympics aren’t based on money, and they are not for world rankings, it’s just pure golf, pure competition in an event that has a heritage and history. “It’s a little bit romantic, but that’s why we want to win because we are passionate about winning, and we are passionate about our country. We’re not making anything out of it, it’s just pure desire to be the best.” Smith works with a team of professionals around the world to provide services like strength and conditioning, sports psychology and physiotherapy to his star athletes year-round while he catches up with them personally for technical and tactical advice. “The main thing I offer them is stability,” he said. “I tell them when they should be doing stuff and fortunately for me, most of the time, they do it. Since 2015 I’ve become more technically savvy ... (but) before 2020 I never felt I was as good as the other coaches. “Now it’s a bit strange because I step on the range and other coaches are watching me when I got to a PGA Tour event. I still feel like an ex-club pro from Perth, Western Australia.” Minjee and Min Woo are in no doubt about the impact Smith has had — and is still having — on their rise to the top of world golf. “I pretty much grew up with Ritchie and I knew him when he was young and, now we are older, so he is part of the family,” Minjee said. “Obviously, he has great coaching skills, but he also knows us both inside and out, and he knows exactly what to say when we need to hear it, words of encouragement, and he knows how to keep us grounded as well.” Min Woo added: “It just shows how good his relationship is with all of us, having three out of the four in the Olympic team. “It is an amazing achievement. As a coach, I think you can’t really ask for more. We have played in majors which is massive, and I think the Olympics, obviously only the top-two in a country get to play, so I think it just shows how good he actually is as a coach.” Green said it would be special to have Smith with them in Paris, not just for his coaching advice but also for their long friendships. “Because we’ve known each other for so long he knows how we do our best work,” she said. “It will be really special to have him at the Olympics and to have three players there he has worked with for so long it must be really rewarding for him too.” Green, the current world No.7 and a major winner at the Women’s PGA Championship in 2019, will be competing at her second Olympics in Paris, having teed it up alongside Minjee in Tokyo where she finished just outside a medal in a tie for fifth. For Minjee, the world No.12 and a two-time major winner at the Evian Championship in 2021 and US Women’s Open in 2022, these Games will be her third, having finished tied of seventh in Rio in 2016 and tied for 29th in Tokyo. Min Woo, the world No.31, will be making his Olympic debut alongside Australian world No.30 Jason Day. Smith said all three players he coaches have an aggressive mindset every week out on tour — and their pursuit of an Olympic gold medal would be no different. “The way we look at things now days is, it’s no good coming 10th every week,” he said. “No one notices who comes 10th and we now play a much more aggressive game style with all the players. We are more interested in winning than just being a number. “Certainly, we take a different approach off the tee, we are going for it and you can see that with Min Woo, he’s got the fasted ball speed on the PGA Tour. Minjee and Hannah are quite quick for their size. “If we look at it internationally at a professional level, we are killing it and, pound for pound, probably the strongest place in the world.”

Meet Ritchie Smith, the WA super coach behind three of Australia’s four Olympic golf representatives

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