Singapore: China’s Ding Wenyi and Saki Baba of Japan will finish 2022 as the highest rated Asia-Pacific players in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR).
At the end of a year during which he triumphed in the US Junior Amateur, 17-year-old Ding rose to 15th in the WAGR, the third highest ranked non-American after number one Ludvig Aberg of Sweden and Belgium’s Adrien Dumont De Chassart (12th).
Baba, 17, also enjoyed a notable success on American soil in 2022, becoming the second Japanese to win the US Women’s Amateur Championship. She heads into 2023 in third position in the women’s standings, behind only American Rose Zhang and Sweden’s Ingrid Lindblad.
Among the men, Ding pipped Thai Ratchanon ‘TK’ Chantananuwat (16th) and Kosuke Suzuki (17th) for the distinction of being the leading Asia-Pacific representative in the standings.
At the ripe old age of 15 years and 37 days, Ratchanon wrote his name into the record books beating a high-quality field in the Trust Golf Asian Mixed Cup, becoming the youngest male player to win on one of the game’s major Tours.
Suzuki also excelled against the professionals in 2022, posting a second-place finish in the Japan Golf Tour’s Asia-Pacific Open Golf Championship Diamond Cup and a joint 19th place finish in the Japan Open.
No fewer than eight other players from the region featured in the top-50 in the men’s ranking – Japan’s Yuta Sugiura (21st), Australian Harrison Crowe (23rd), Kohei Okada of Japan (25th), Korean Sam Choi (37th), Singaporean James Leow (43rd), China’s Lin Yuxin (44th), Japan’s Tsubasa Ukita (45th), and China’s Jin Bo (46th).
Sugiura, third in the Japan Open, was the leading individual in November’s Asia-Pacific Men’s Amateur Team Championship for the Nomura Trophy, helping Japan to the team title in the process.
Crowe gained international headlines when he triumphed in October’s 13th Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship at Thailand’s Amata Spring Country Club, earning him starts in the Masters Tournament and The Open Championship in 2023.
During 2022, the Japanese duo of Keita Nakajima and Taiga Semikawa both held the number one spot in the rankings prior to relinquishing their amateur status.
The strength of women’s amateur golf in Japan was underlined by the fact that as of the end of the year the country has three players in the WAGR’s top-10, seven in the top-20 and 12 in the top-50.
Following Baba are Rin Yoshida (4th), Sayaka Teraoka (10th), Yuna Araki (11th), Hinano Muguruma (16th), Mizuki Hashimoto (18th), Tsubasa Kajitani (20th), Sora Kamiya (21st), Mamika Shinchi (24th), Reika Arakawa (32nd), Nika Ito (40th), and Miku Ueta (44th).
There are a further 10 players from the Asia-Pacific in the women’s top-50 – Koreans Lim Ji-yoo (15th) and Kim Min-sol (17th), Thai Natthakritta Vongtaveelap (28th), China’s Zhang Yahui (29th), Korean Park Bo-hyun (30th), Chinese-Taipei’s Lu Hsin-yu (33rd), New Zealand’s Fiona Xu (35th), Malaysian Ashley Lau Jen Wen (36th), Chinese-Taipei’s Huang Ting-hsuan (47th) and Malaysian Jeneath Wong (50th).
Huang soared into the top-50 on the back of her victory in November’s fourth Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific at Thailand’s Siam Country Club, edging out runner-up Natthakritta, Baba (tied sixth) and 2021 champion Hashimoto (tied ninth), among others.