Singapore: Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship (AAC) winner Harrison Crowe will spearhead the region’s bid to retain the Bonallack Trophy.
Players from eight countries have been selected for the Asia-Pacific team in the Ryder Cup-style match play contest against the European Golf Association (EGA) that will take place at Spain’s La Manga Club from August 3-5.
“We’re pleased to have such a strong representation from around our region,” said non-playing captain Rishi Narain, of the line-up that includes two players from Australia, China, Japan and Korea and one each from Chinese Taipei, Malaysia, New Zealand and Vietnam.
The team includes six players currently within the top-90 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR).
The highest ranked players are Japan’s Yuta Sugiura in 19th place, Australian Crowe (34th), China’s Sampson Zheng Yunhe (56th) Japanese Taichiro Ideriha (70th), Korean Jang Yu-bin (74th) and China’s Jin Bo (87th).
They are followed by Korean Cho Woo-young (107th), Lin Chuan-tai of Chinese Taipei (117th), Australian Jack Buchanan (186th), Malaysian Malcolm Ting (187th), Vietnam’s Nguyen Ahn Minh (201st) and New Zealander Joshua Bai (266th).
Crowe, who triumphed in the 2022 AAC in Thailand, will be well acclimatised by the time he arrives in Spain having competed in The 128th Amateur Championship last month followed by the 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in the third week of July.
Crowe (pictured right) is not the only member of the Asia-Pacific team to have recorded a notable victory over the past 12 months.
At Manila Southwoods Golf and Country Club last November, Sugiura proved the strong man as Japan surged to a seven-stroke triumph in the 29th edition of the Nomura Cup, the Asia-Pacific Amateur Golf Team Championship. For good measure, Sugiura also had the distinction of winning the award for low individual.
This year, he’s impressed on the Japan Golf Tour, finishing 11th in the Token Homemate Cup and 31st in the BMW Japan Golf Tour Championship.
Meanwhile, May proved to be a momentous month for China’s Zheng.
Teaming up with compatriot and fellow 21-year-old senior at the University of California-Berkeley, Aaron Du, Zheng won the eighth US Amateur Four-Ball Championship at Kiawah Island.
Du and Zheng joined 2022 US Junior Amateur champion Ding Wenyi as the only male golfers from the People’s Republic of China to claim a USGA title.
“For me it’s history,” said Zheng. “Our names are going to go down forever in history. Fifty years, 100 years later when this tournament continues on, our names are going to be on that trophy. That’s such an amazing thing to think about.”
Reflecting on the week in which the side played 42-under-par golf over 117 holes, Zheng added: “There aren’t too many champions from China at this level, so I really hope that this can inspire junior golfers in China to do the same in the future.”
Zheng has twice competed in the AAC, He tied for 33rd at Sheshan International in Shanghai in 2019 and shared 20th spot at Bangkok’s Amata Spring last year.
Meanwhile, Ting and Minh both featured prominently at last month’s Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Cambodia, winning the individual silver and bronze medals respectively.
Also a member of the Vietnamese line-up that won the team silver medal, Minh created history in April when he became the first player from his country to win the Faldo Series Asia Grand Final. On the back of those performances, he’s now also written his name into the history books as the first Vietnamese to represent the Asia-Pacific in the Bonallack Trophy.
Among those who were unavailable for Bonallack Trophy selection due to prior commitments were China’s Ding Wenyi, Thai Ratchanon ‘TK’ Chantananuwat, Australians Karl Vilips and Jeff Guan, New Zealanders Kazumi Kobori and Jayden Ford and Singaporean Hiroshi Tai.
Bones Floro, a member of the APGC’s Board of Directors who was involved in the team selection process, said: “That we are able to field such a powerful team despite missing so many world-class players just goes to show the current strength in depth that Asia-Pacific has in the elite amateur game.
“Against a strong European team in Europe, we know how difficult it will be to retain the trophy we won in 2018 when the Bonallack Trophy was last played. We can’t predict what the outcome will be this year, but we have a fantastic team that will give of its very best.”
Asia-Pacific Bonallack Trophy team: Joshua Bai (New Zealand); Jack Buchanan (Australia); Cho Woo-young (Korea); Harrison Crowe (Australia); Taichiro Ideriha (Japan); Jang Yu-bin (Korea); Jin Bo (China); Lin Chuan-tai (Chinese Taipei); Nguyen Ahn Minh (Vietnam); Yuta Sugiura (Japan); Malcolm Ting (Malaysia); Sampson Zheng Yunhe (China).
