Hai Phong, Vietnam: Nguyen Anh Minh will be aiming to script a piece of golfing history when he spearheads Vietnam’s bid for a maiden Nomura Cup title in this week’s 30th edition of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Team Championship.
A total of 19 three-man teams are competing in the 72-hole event at Vinpearl Hai Phong – the first time the championship has been staged in Vietnam since its inception in 1963.
This year’s event also marks the first time that Vietnam has competed in the longest-running tournament in the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation’s (APGC) portfolio.
And with Nguyen Anh Minh to the fore, supported by Le Khanh Hung and Huy Ho Anh, the host nation has cause for confidence.
At number 84 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), jet-setting Anh Minh is the highest rated player in the field.
Three weeks ago he represented The International Team in the Junior Presidents Cup in Canada. A week later he tied for 19th at the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship (AAC) in Japan.
Aged 17, Anh Minh already has a wealth of top-level tournament experience under his belt, last year representing Vietnam at the Asian Games and playing a key role in the APGC’s triumph over the European Golf Association in the Ryder Cup-style Bonallack Trophy in Spain.
Among his individual highlights this year, Anh Minh has won the Vietnam Amateur Open and Chinese Taipei Amateur Open and reached the quarter-final stage in the US Junior Amateur Championship.
At Vinpearl, Anh Minh, who has committed to play collegiate golf at Oregon State University, and Le Khanh Hung, last year’s Southeast Asian (SEA) Games individual gold medallist who is 174th in the WAGR, will need to be at their best in the event in which the two best daily scores in each team are counted for the overall total.
Of the 57 players in the starting line-up, there are 13 within the top-300 in the WAGR.
No fewer than six of the players were part of the 12-strong International Team at the Junior Presidents Cup – Vietnamese Anh Min and Khanh Hung, Indian Kartik Singh, New Zealand’s Joshua Bai, Thai Thanawin Lee and China’s Gu Liangliang.
Now in its 61st year, the Nomura Cup has been dominated by Australia and Japan, who have each won the Cup 10 times.
Chinese Taipei have triumphed on five occasions, while Korea, New Zealand, India and Thailand are the only other countries to have won the team title.
Led by low amateur Yuta Sugiura, Japan emerged victorious at Manila Southwoods in the Philippines in 2022. This time, the Japanese team will rely on Masayuki Yamashita and Taishi Moto.
Meanwhile, Billy Dowling, Declan O’Donovan and Blake Philipps will be seeking to end Australia’s 11-year victory drought in the Nomura Cup, an event they won five times in a row from 1999 to 2007.
Also looking to mount a title challenge will be the teams from China, Hong Kong, China, Korea, New Zealand and Thailand.
Wang Ngai Shen and Alexander Yang will provide the thrust for Hong Kong, China while New Zealand will lean on Bai and Jayden Ford and, a fortnight after Ding Wenyi’s victory in the 15th AAC, China will look to Gu Liangliang.
Meanwhile, much will be expected of An Seong-hyeon, the Korean teenager who won this year’s R&A Junior Open, was runner-up in the APGC Junior Boys’ Championship and tied for fifth in the AAC in Japan.
Teerawaut Boonseeor, who defeated An to win the APGC Junior Boys Championship in the Philippines at the start of last month, is a member of the Thailand team.
The Nomura Cup is part of the APGC’s portfolio of events that also includes the AAC, Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific, Queen Sirikit Cup, APGC Senior Championships, APGC Junior Championships, and the Bonallack Trophy and Patsy Hankins Trophy.