Khang discovers family’s remarkable escape
The US golfer found out about fleeing from Laos death squads from TV, writes James Corrigan
Megan Khang did not realise the extent of the terrors of her parents’ escape from the death squads until she saw the feature on the Golf Channel. Now the 21-year-old realises just how remarkable a journey it has been from the betrayal, fear and blood of the Vietnam War to the manicured fairways of Gleneagles in Perthshire; where this week the Solheim Cup will be played out to the usual crass overtures of battle, but will in fact represent the realisation of undreamt-of ambition.
It is fair to say, the Khang tale is more fantastical than any other in the team rooms here. She herself cannot quite believe the hardships her parents Lee and Nou had to endure to restart their lives in America. “I did not know too much about my parents’ history of how they got to the States,” Khang said.
Dare to dream: Megan Khang during Solheim Cup practice at Gleneagles “I knew the brief story, but when [the Golf Channel] did the story on my family, I got the deeper version. And I’m so proud of my parents. I don’t tell them enough. I mean, I’m their kid, so I’m not going to tell them enough am I? But I am so very, very proud.”
Lee was seven when he was forced to flee with his 11 siblings from the communist regime. Brought up on a rice farm in Laos, Lee’s family were members of the Hmong people, who were hired and trained by the CIA to disrupt Hoi Chi Minh’s supply lines. But then the Americans withdrew and the Hmong were trapped. On taking power, the Pathet Lao declared they would be wiped out from Laos.
“I remember the gun shots,” Lee told the Golf Channel as he explained the midnight getaway across the Mekong River to refugee camps in Thailand. “I remember holding on to the boat for dear life.” Nou’s family survived a similarly harrowing experience, before the Americans finally faced up to their responsibilities – to those lucky enough to make the camps, at least – and repatriated their forgotten allies. Lee and Nou were settled in Boston, inevitably struggling at first but somehow reaching the point where, in their 50s, they yesterday found themselves shopping in Edinburgh before travelling north to see their girl in the Stars and Stripes. “It’s just surreal,” Nou said. “We’re just so proud, to see what she’s accomplishing, to see her playing for the United States.”
Megan is keen to point out that the inspiration does not start and stop with their life-saving liberation. When they arrived in the US, there was suspicion because the CIA’S operation was covert and with Vietnam resentment simmering, and at times boiling over, the Hmong were forced to retreat within themselves and the ostracised community quickly found that America’s fabled opportunity was rare.
Lee was a mechanic, until somehow the golf bug bit. Selftaught on ramshackle ranges, he quickly discovered an aptitude for coaching. When Megan was 10, he set himself up as a teaching pro, working primarily at public facilities. Megan was as obsessed as her father and although the finance was not there for her regularly to take on the best of her age, she took the chances whenever they were presented.
At just 14, Megan made it through qualifying for the US Women’s Open and won low-amateur honours in that same major three years later. In 2015, she won all five of her matches in the Junior Ryder Cup in Germany and that year, as an 18-year-old, emerged from qualifying school to earn an LPGA Tour card that she has stubbornly refused to concede. Megan knows where to trace it all back to. Or at least, she thought she did, before the Golf Channel’s tear-raiser.
“My mom took a risk of having my dad quitting his job to focus on golf,” Khang said yesterday. “If she hadn’t been so willing, I would not be here today. I wouldn’t be playing golf. It was a family sacrifice, a huge sacrifice and now I’m able to do what I love and my parents are here to travel with me around the world. It’s just an incredible journey up and we are still writing our story.”
Indeed, at 46th in the world, there is so much more to come from this accurate driver whose main strength, understandably, seems to rest between her ears. Already, she has won more than £1.5million and Juli Inkster, the US captain, is certain what the rookie will bring to the bid to win a third Solheim Cup in succession. “Megan is only 5ft 1in, is always smiling but inside there is a competitor who will never quit,” she said. “She might just sum up this team.”
Khang could sum up a great deal more. In America, the Hmong community numbers more than 250,000 and here, at last, is their superstar. “I’m very proud to wear the red, white and blue,“Khang said. “But overall I want to be someone who young kids can look up to. I want to inspire and motivate those kids who may have had a background like my family’s and say, ‘hey, if she can do, it I can do it’. It’s not just myself and this country – I want to have an impact on future generations.”
‘I remember the gun shots – and I remember holding on to the boat for dear life’