Asia’s best amateur golfers set their sights on Hong Kong’s Clearwater Bay for region’s showpiece
The region’s best amateur golfers will descend on Hong Kong in October when the Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club hosts the seventh edition of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship.
The region’s best amateur golfers will descend on Hong Kong in October when the Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club hosts the seventh edition of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship.
Under the slogan of “Creating Heroes”, the showpiece championship will feature 120 players from the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation’s 39 member associations.
The stakes are high with the champion receiving a place at the Masters Tournament at Augusta and, along with the runner-up, a berth in The Open qualifying series for The Open Championship.
Chinese schoolboy Guan Tianlang won the event in Thailand in 2012 and then rocked the golfing world by making the cut at the 77th Masters, despite being harshly penalised one shot for slow play. The 14-year-old from Guangzhou was the youngest player in Masters history.
“Hong Kong has an impressive track record of staging world-class international sporting events and we have no doubt this year’s event at Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club will be another example of that,” said Dominic Wall, director of Asia Pacific at The R&A.
Matsuyama has gone on to star on the US PGA Tour, scoring a breakthrough win last year. He has amassed more than US$6.37 million in career prize-money and is in 10th place in this year’s FedExCup standings.
Guan triumphed at the Amata Spring Country Club in Chonburi in 2012, while South Korean Lee Chang-woo clinched the 2013 event in China at the Nanshan International Golf Club.
Australian Antonio Murdaca is the defending champion, having won the 2014 event at Royal Melbourne Golf Club.