Randy Henry admits he doesn't speak a word of Russian.

Doesn't matter.

Golf has a language all its own and besides, the budding Russian players Henry is trying to groom into championship-level golfers speak English just fine.

"So far, the program's working unbelievably," said Henry, the Hayden Lake resident who was recently selected as head coach for the Russian men's and women's national golf teams.

Not only was Henry hired to develop Russian players for 2016, when golf returns to the Olympics for the first time since 1904, but he has also been asked to develop a system to grow the game in golf in Russia, which boasts only around 15,000 golfers and less than two dozen golf courses.

"This was a clean slate to start golf in a country that's never had golf," said Henry, 62. "It's a great opportunity to try some things that you think would work, so we'll find out."

Since early January, Henry has been at PGA National in Port St. Lucie, Fla., working with 20 Russian golfers of various skill levels - some professional level, some amateur level, and some juniors - boys and girls, men and women, ranging in age from 16 to 28. Three Russian coaches are also helping him - and learning from him.

Randy is uniquely qualied to prepare the Russian National Team for competition, Nikolay Afanasyev, head of the Russian Golf Association's Sports Department, said in a news release. "He has a proven teaching philosophy and methodology, exceptional equipment knowledge, and familiarity with the most innovative teaching technology."

Indirectly, Henry has had an interest in Russian golf since 2000, when Henry met a young budding golfer named Maria Kostina at a tournament in Florida. With Henry's help, Maria and her sister Anastasia wound up getting scholarships to play golf at Washington State, and both later played on the Futures Tour, a minor league of sorts for women's professional golf in the U.S.

While Maria is a teaching pro these days, Anastasia is one of the 20 golfers - and potential Olympians - competing at Henry's academy in Florida.

In the meantime, Henry had been to Russia under invite from their government to discuss developing a national program for golf there.

The Russian golf federation rented out a portion of a massive driving range at PGA National in Port St. Lucie, and sent their own chefs and support crew to Florida to help the players.

"They don't goof around, the Russians and their sports," Henry said last week, in a phone interview from Florida. "They really search out what they want, and they really go after what they want."

Henry will work with the 20 Russian golfers through mid-April, then the golfers will head back to Europe to play in tournaments. He will watch them some over there, but also return to North Idaho to teach his system at The Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course.

Next January, the process starts all over, with Russian golfers - some from this year's group, some new ones - training with Henry in Florida for 3 1/2 months.

Ditto in 2015 and 2016. The idea is for Henry to work with the Russian golfers through the '16 Olympics, and teach his system to Russian coaches for them to implement back in Russia.

At PGA National, they start each day around 8 a.m. and finish up around 7 p.m., practicing six days a week. They also play in tournaments in Florida, with some good results.

"We've had an unbelievable start," Henry said, "considering our golfers are not yet at the level that we would love to have them at. But so far the program's working unbelievably."

So what is his system?

Obviously it involves some mechanics and technique, but "mostly their practice is games," Henry said. "We don't sit out and hit practice balls all the time."

He has devised accuracy games, chipping games, putting games. One day, he might ask the professional-level males to play from the ladies tees, and see how many birdies they can make. Another day, he might have everybody play their approach shots to the middle of the green; another day, he might ask them to miss the green, and see how well they can get up and down.

"The practice is very competitive, so we try to get much better practice out of people than to just drag and hit balls," Henry said. "It's a lot more fun (than hitting balls). If it's not fun, you can imagine how bad that (the long days of practice) can be."

In other sports, the Russians are notorious for practicing technique for hours. So Henry's system is a little bit different approach for them, though he said none of them have more than four years' experience playing the game.

"If anything, the Russians are so oriented on technique ... like gymnastics, they're going to work 16 hours a day on technique, and that technique usually takes them through to do very well.

"Whereas in golf, it's just a completely different kind of thing. In gymnastics, the wind doesn't change, you don't get a faster court, they don't switch the bars on you every minute. Here, and that's probably the hardest thing for them to realize, the conditions change all the time.

"You can have technique, but it (golf) is an ever-changing, flowing kind of thing. It was a big adjustment (for them). I think their technique, in many cases, was pretty good. But their ability to play the game wasn't maybe as good as it could be."

Henry, who graduated from Gonzaga Prep, founded the nationally known Henry-Griffitts club-fitting company in 1983. Randy's son, Randall, is now in charge of that business, while Randy concentrates on his Randy Henry Dynamic Golf business at The Coeur d'Alene Resort Plaza Shops, and he's also out at the Resort Course running his golf academies.

He says he feels blessed just to be doing all this, after surviving a head-on collision on the old Seltice Way bridge at Stateline in 1974, returning home from a golf tournament in Spokane, a crash which severely injured his spine and, some thought, was going to render him a paraplegic.

"It's a wonderful deal," Randy said of working with the Russian golfers, and trying to grow the sport in that country. "It's like going to a huge country that has all these wonderful athletes and being able to put in some sort of a program that you've dreamed up and being able to put it into effect. That was the fun part."