Vandal Feature: The One Way Trip

In the summer of 2019, a 17-year-old Jose Suryadinata and his mother, Kristina, traveled to the US from their home in Surabaya, Indonesia, on the Northside of Middle Java. The trip consisted of 45 days of golf, but it wasn’t a vacation, it was Jose’s only shot at picking up a college scholarship and the family put everything on the line, including taking out a second mortgage on their house, to help him hit that goal.

“The burden of that trip wore on me,” Jose said, “It was all I could think about the weeks before we left. I really wasn’t playing very well because I was thinking about how much my parents had put on the line. My dad said, ‘this is a one-way trip,’ and I knew it.”

Suryadinata began golfing when he was nine years old. He was introduced to the sport by his grandfather. After showing promise, he and his parents weighed a decision, was it something that he could build on to possibly pay for college, or was he chasing a dream? The answer wasn’t clear when he was 14, but as a family, they decided to give it a shot. 

A typical path for an Indonesian player to a DI scholarship comes by way of consultants, personal coaching, tournaments all over Indonesia and several trips to the US to play in summer tournaments.

Suryadinata’s dad, David, owns a small business and his mother is a stay-at-home mom. They are a standard middle-class family in Indonesia, they are comfortable, but not close to being able to pay a consultant or make multiple trips to the US. There would be limited personal coaching and he would play in tournaments locally, but the other aspects of the typical formula were out of the question.

The family had to come up with an alternative plan. First, they would do the work of the consultant themselves, contacting coaches and planning tournament schedules. Second, they would scrape together everything that they could to get one trip to the US to try to make an impression.

Jose worked hard, hitting the course after school nearly every day and grinding to improve. He knew that his parents were putting a lot on the line for him. He felt the pressure, but it motivated him.

“I feel like really I'm lucky to have that kind of parents,” Suryadinata said. “Not all kids have parents that are willing to make that kind of sacrifice. It really taught me a lot in the process. Once you've committed to something you cannot back off and it taught me the value of seeing it through. You cannot back off when it gets hard because the sacrifice has already been made so I think that sacrifice taught me a lot of good life principles.”

In 2019, the year before he graduated high school, they made arrangements for the trip to the States to compete in tournaments. To pay for it, his parents took out a second mortgage on their home. At the same time, he and his father began their own process of contacting coaches. They emailed over 250 coaches from Division I schools all over the United States. He looked for the opportunity to show what he could do when he took to the courses in the US.

By chance, the first email he sent was to Vandal head coach David Nuhn. The two began to build a relationship as Suryadinata prepped for his trip.

“I started talking with Coach and started giving him my tournament results,” Suryadinata said. “Coming into the states there's this one big tournament that I didn't qualify for back home. I played in a lot of qualifying tournaments just to qualify for that, but I always came up like one stroke short. I played well but couldn’t qualify, I would let coach know and he always gave me some motivation to keep going. He would tell me, ‘You are close, don’t give up mentally just keep going.’ I liked that dynamic. He is a coach that cares not only about the results, but the process, and the process is a big part for me.”

With his dad at home, running the business, Suryadinata and his mother traveled to the US on the “One-way trip,” to compete in as many tournaments as he could in 45 days. It was the first time that either of them had been to the US.

“It was eye-opening,” Suryadinata said. “It's stressful, fun, exciting and scary all in the same feeling. My mom had never traveled internationally before and we had to spend 45 days in the states knowing nothing about the US, knowing nothing about even how to drive on the other side of the road. We had to do it by ourselves. We had no clue what we were getting into, but we had to do it because it’s the only chance I had.”

Nuhn first caught up with Suryadinata at a tournament in San Diego and the rapport that the two developed over email continued to grow. He showed that not only did he have the skills to play Division I golf, but the mindset as well.

“The first time I saw him play at an event in San Diego,” Nuhn said. “He shot 66 round one. In round two, he got unlucky and lost his tee shot on the first hole and made triple bogey. He made three birdies in the next seven holes and was even through eight. On nine I told myself I wanted this kid at Idaho. That kind of mental toughness and no-quit attitude to put a bad hole behind him and battle. That was awesome to see. That's the attitude we need here at Idaho to be a successful program. No fear and no quit.”

The scholarship offer came and was accepted. It was the culmination of years of work and sacrifice by the entire Suryadinata family, but Jose now had to return to the US and make the trip to Moscow, Idaho, a place he had never even visited. A place that was maybe as far away from Indonesia as any place in the world, not only distance-wise but in the culture and the climate.  Despite the dramatic change, he took the move in stride.

“I think I prepped myself mentally to know that it's going to be hard and that I’m going to be far away from my parents,” Suryadinata said. “To be honest, I don't feel homesick, it's been good. I always communicate with my parents. Daily FaceTime helps. It's hard sometimes, but I think I'm in a good space right now.”

He also found a team that embraces him as a friend and teammate. He fits in well with the team culture and has built his own Vandal family to help him bridge the gap.

“Being at Idaho is better than I expected in every way possible,” Suryadinata said. “In terms of golf, in terms of schools, in terms of team dynamics, everything is better. Being an international kid in a place far away from home for the first time in my life. I thought, 'how am I gonna make friends? How can I have friends that I can rely on nowadays?’ Everyone helped me, everyone supports me. The surrounding is just so wonderful and maybe that's why I don't feel homesick at all.”

On the golf side, he has shown that he is everything that Nuhn thought he was. He earned Big Sky Freshman of the Year honors in 2021, Second-Team All-Big Sky recognition this season and currently leads after the first round of the Big Sky Championship.

Throughout the entire process from a 14-year-old in Indonesia to a Sophomore All-Conference player at the University of Idaho, he has grown both as a golfer and as a person, but he knows he isn’t done yet.

“Looking back, I have to thank my parents that not letting me to stop. I was about to stop a couple of times, but they convinced me to keep going,” Syryadinata said. “I think now where I'm standing right now, I already feel successful in a way. I can keep trusting the process, it's not about results, it’s a learning process. As long as I keep learning, I think I'll take that as a success.”