In-Form Kim Gyu-been Consolidates Place in WAGR Top-50

Singapore: With her play-off victory at the 46th Queen Sirikit Cup, Kim Gyu-been has consolidated her position in the top-50 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR).

In a thrilling finale to the 2026 Amateur Ladies Asia-Pacific Invitational Golf Team Championship at Sentul Highlands Golf Club in Indonesia, 16-year-old Kim prevailed at the second hole of a sudden-death play-off, holing a 22-foot birdie putt from just off the green to pip Japan’s Ai Goto for the individual title.

In so doing she rose 15 spots in the WAGR to a career-high of 32nd, placing her fourth among Koreans behind Oh Soo-min (ninth), Park Seo-jin (26th) and reigning Women's Amateur Asia-Pacific (WAAP) champion Yang Yun-seo (31st).

Park and Yang were Kim’s team-mates at Sentul Highlands where they lost out on the team title to Japan by a single stroke.

Kim’s individual Queen Sirikit Cup success continued an excellent run of form dating back to last year when she won both the Song Am Cup in Korea and the Pondok Indah Junior Championship in Indonesia. She also finished runner-up in the Maekyung Women’s Amateur, tied-third in the Dream Park Cup, tied-fourth in the Korean Girls’ Junior Championship, sixth in the National Sports Festival and tied-10th in the Korean Women's Amateur.

This year, she followed a joint ninth-place finish at the WAAP in New Zealand by placing equal 15th in her debut at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. A fortnight before her Queen Sirikit Cup triumph, Kim was runner-up at the Annika Invitational Asia in Phuket.

Kim has also joined an illustrious list of past winners of the individual accolade at the Queen Sirikit Cup, including fellow Koreans Kim Mi-hyun (1995), Ryu So-yeon (2007) and Kim Hyo-joo (2010 and 2012), Japanese Shinobu Moromizato (2004), Thai Atthaya ‘Jeeno’ Thitikul (2018), Chinese Taipei’s Tseng Ya-ni (2005) and Dottie Ardina of the Philippines (2011).

In the men’s standings, Kim Min-su – unrelated to Kim Gyu-been – is back in the WAGR top 200 thanks to an excellent fortnight during which he won the Bitgoeuljungheung Cup in his homeland for the second time in the past three years and placed eighth among the professionals in the 68th KOLON Korea Open on the Asian Tour.Kim

The Korean, who won three times last year including a successful defence of the Korean Amateur Championship and was seventh at the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Dubai in October, has climbed 37 spots in the last two weeks to 170th, making him the top-rated Korean male amateur.