Royal Melbourne Golf Club set to host Asia Pacific Amateur Championship

Wednesday, 23 July 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Preparations for the sixth Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship are well underway, the event’s Founding Partners announced this week. The 72-hole, stroke play competition will be played over the Composite Course at The Royal Melbourne Golf Club from 23-26 October 2014. Established in 2009 by the Asia Pacific Golf Confederation (APGC), Masters Tournament and The R&A, the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship will see a field of 120 of the highest ranked players descend on Melbourne to experience the premier amateur golf competition in the region.

The champion will receive an invitation to compete in the Masters Tournament in April 2015 and an exemption into The Amateur Championship, which is conducted by The R&A. In addition, along with the runner up, places in The Open Qualifying Series are up for grabs, with the opportunity to qualify for The Open Championship at St Andrews in 2015. APGC Chairman Dr. David Cherry commented on the event coming to Melbourne for the first time: “The Royal Melbourne Golf Club has a rich history of hosting major tournaments and we are delighted to give the best amateur golfers in the Asia-Pacific region the opportunity to play this storied venue.” “The combination of the skill and precision of the region’s best amateur players and a course of this stature is bound to provide golf-lovers in the sport-loving city of Melbourne with a terrific day out during tournament week,” Cherry said. John Hopkins, Chairman Golf Australia also commented on the tournament; “Since its inception in 2009, the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship has had a profoundly positive impact on the development of elite amateur golf across our region,” Hopkins said. “We look forward to welcoming all our international guests in a field of this calibre to Melbourne in October. With an invitation to The Masters in 2015 and places in The Open Qualifying Series on the line, there is much to play for and Royal Melbourne Golf Club is a fitting host for the 2014 championship.”

The tournament has so far produced some prominent young champions, including Japanese sensation Hideki Matsuyama (2010, 2011), a 2014 winner on the PGA Tour, Chinese sensation Guan Tianlang, who won the event as a 14-year-old in 2012, and South Korea’s Lee Chang-woo, last year’s winner at Nanshan International Golf Club in China. Runner-up in the 2012 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, Cheng-Tsung Pan, 22, from Taiwan, will this week compete in The Open Championship at Royal Liverpool Golf Club. Pan has previously competed in two majors, the 2011 US Open and the 2013 US Open at Merion, where he made the cut and finished tied-45th. Former Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship competitor and Melbourne local, Bryden Macpherson, 23, is playing his first major as a professional this week at The Open Championship. Macpherson won the 2011 Amateur Championship, which earned him a place in the 2011 Open Championship and the 2012 Masters Tournament, following which he turned professional. He has status on the Australasian and OneAsia tours as well as PGA Tour China Series.