Golf: Five Indian amateurs to tee up at the Asia-Pacific Amateurs in Dubai

Dubai, Oct 21 Rakshit Dahiya is the only one of the five Indian amateurs here at the 16th Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship to have played his elite amateur event before, but none of the other four lack in international experience. The 2025 AAC begins on Thursday and continues through to Sunday.

The five players, who feature in India colours this week at the world-class Emirates Golf Club’s Majlis Course from Thursday, have all gone out, often on their own, to gain valuable experience. The Championship returns for the second time to Dubai, which hosted the event earlier in 2021. The Majlis Course at Emirates Golf Club will host the Championship for the first time.

No Indian has won the prestigious title, though Rayhan Thomas, now a professional, was runner-up in 2018 in Sentosa, Singapore. Interestingly, Rayhan grew up in Dubai and is now based in the US, where he plays on the Korn Ferry Tour.

Rakshit at 313th in World Amateur Golf Rankings is the top Indian, but Anshul Mishra, the reigning All India Amateur Champion, Ranveer Mitroo, Raghav Gulati, and Harman Sachdeva, too, have played a lot of international amateur golf over the past couple of years.

While Dahiya will bring in his experience of having played all over, Mishra will bank on his familiarity with the Majlis Course, where he played and finished fifth earlier this year in the Junior Dubai Desert Classic, which is supported by Shubhankar Sharma.

Gulati, who plays college golf at the University of Southern California and grew up in Dubai, has a very good idea of the course around Dubai and has played the Majlis course often.

Earlier this year, Gulati won the Tommy Fleetwood International Pathway Series. Earlier, he won another event in the Fleetwood International Pathway Series, in addition to two other events in the UAE.

Earlier this year, Sachdeva finished runner-up in the Mandiri Ciputra Golfpreneur Junior World Championship in Indonesia. In 2024, he won a World Amateur Golf Ranking event in Indonesia.

The AAC has the most attractive prizes in amateur golf with the champion receiving an invitation to the 2026 Masters Tournament and an exemption into The 154th Open in 2026, while the runner(s)-up receive an exemption into The Open Qualifying Series and the top-three finishers receive an exemption into The 131st Amateur Championship.

A full field of 120 amateurs from 41 countries will vie for the prestigious title, which provides an invitation to the 2026 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club and exemptions into The 154th Open at Royal Birkdale and the 131st Amateur Championship at Royal Liverpool. However, the champion must retain his amateur status.

The runner(s)-up will earn a spot in The Open Qualifying Series with the opportunity to earn a place in The 154th Open.

The Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship was created in 2009 as a joint initiative between the APGC, the Masters Tournament, and The R&A. Notable past competitors include Hideki Matsuyama, a two-time winner of the Asia-Pacific Amateur and the 2021 Masters champion, and Cameron Smith, champion of The 150th Open.

Other top players that have used the Asia-Pacific Amateur as a springboard to a notable professional career include Australia’s Cameron Davis and Min Woo Lee, Chinese Taipei’s C.T. Pan, the Republic of Korea’s Si-Woo Kim and Kyoung-Hoon Lee, Japan’s Takumi Kanaya and Keita Nakajima, and New Zealand’s Ryan Fox.

Collectively, alumni of the Championship have gone on to win 27 tournaments on the PGA Tour to date and more than 130 events across major professional tours.

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