Singapore: On the back of their Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation (APGC) Junior Championship victories, Arianna Lau and Hsu Po-cheng have attained their highest status in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR).
At Manila’s Orchard Golf & Country Club last week, Hong Kong China’s Lau emerged triumphant in the girls’ division while Chinese Taipei’s Hsu took top honours among the boys. Thanks to those successes, both have made significant jumps in the WAGR.
Lau, who has made the cut in the past two editions of the Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific (WAAP) as well as winning two tournaments in Singapore in 2022 and successfully defending her Hong Kong Junior Close Championship title last month, started the week in 201st position in the WAGR.
With her come-from-behind win in the Philippines, she’s risen 56 spots to 145th. Lau has also overhauled US-based Virginie Ding as the leading Hong Kong China player in the female rankings.
Although they narrowly missed out on the top prize at the Orchard venue, joint runners-up Nishna Patel, Pimpisa Rubrong and Prim Prachnakorn have all enhanced their reputations and their ranking.
Indian Patel is up 78 spots to 706th, while Thais Pimpisa (425) and Prim (410) have both broken into the top-400 following improvements of 43 and 80 spots respectively.
Meanwhile, Hsu is now the second highest rated male amateur from Chinese Taipei after jumping 101 places to 285th following his gutsy one-stroke win from Koreans Moon Dong-hyun and An Seong-hyeon.
For their part, Moon is now 472nd (up 60) and An is 1,082nd (up 1,021).
Also enjoying a massive leap in the rankings this week was Kim Shi-hyun who posted a stunning 10-stroke victory in the Bitgoeuljungheung Cup following rounds of 66, 64, 69 and 70.
It was Kim’s first win in a WAGR-counting events and saw the Korean soar 1,160 places to 291st.
