Rayhan Thomas
18-year-old Dubai based Rayhan Thomas fell two strokes short of a win at the 2018 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship held at Sentosa Golf Club, Singapore from October 4-7, 2018. He had also finished an impressive eighth at the World Amateur Championship in Ireland in September.
Other Indians in the field included 18-year-old Kartik Sharma who secured T-13, Yuvraj Sandhu (T-21), Kshitij Naveed Kaul (T-38) and Varun Parekh (T-54).
RELATED: Koepka rises to World No.1
Thomas shot strong rounds of 74, 64, 65 and 66 to finish T-2, along with Keita Nakajima of Japan, at 11-under-269. The winner, Takumi Kanaya (also from Japan) posted 69, 69, 64, and 65. Besides the trophy, Kanaya received invitations to The Masters and The Open Championship next year. The runners-up, meanwhile, receive an invite to The Open Championship qualifying series events where they will attempt to qualify for the prestigious major. Guan Tianlang, who won the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in 2012, went on to play in the 2013 Masters Tournament and, in so doing, became the youngest player (aged 14) in Masters history.
Ranked 30 on the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), Thomas is India’s highest ranked Amateur golfer.
Read more in our November issue of Golf Digest India.