Melbourne, Australia: Jeneath Wong made it three wins in her last six tournaments with an impressive success at the Victorian Junior Amateur.

The 16-year-old Malaysian, who lives in Melbourne, proved too strong for her rivals at The National Golf Club (Long Island). With scores of 75, 73, 71 and 72 for a 291 total, Wong finished four strokes clear of her closest challenger.

Despite a curtailed schedule due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Wong won two of the five events in which she competed in 2020 – the Riversdale Cup and the Girls Championship of Victoria.

On the back of her latest triumph, Wong rose 14 spots in The R&A’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), taking her to a career-high of 304th.

According to reports in Australia, the teenager is continuing to play under the Malaysian banner but is awaiting Australian citizenship papers.

Given her good form, Wong was intending to test herself further this week by competing in the Players Series alongside the men at Rosebud Country Club.

Meanwhile, Kai Komulainen’s incredible run of victories continued at the Victorian Junior Amateur where he took out the boys' title by two shots to secure his fourth trophy in 2021. In so doing, he jumped 975 places in the WAGR to 2,264th.

The 15-year-old Queenslander previously won the South Australian and Tasmanian Junior Amateur crowns, as well as the Tasmanian Junior Masters, all inside the first three weeks of January. He was also runner-up at the South Australian Junior Masters.

Among the women, the biggest mover of the week was Indian Rishika Muralidhar who advanced 603 positions to a high of 2,462nd after finishing 16th in the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour Leg 2 in Chennai.

Although she was not in action last week, Chinese Taipei’s Chang Ya-chun had the satisfaction of breaking into the WAGR’s top-50 for the first time with a two-ranking move to 49th. She joins compatriots Hou Yu-chiang (fifth), An Ho-yu (seventh) and Hou Yu-sang (24th) among the elite women golfers.

Only the United States (eight) have more players in the top-50. Like Chinese Taipei, China, Italy and Sweden have four apiece.

In the men’s standings, Japan’s Taiga Sugihara edged up one spot to 50th place. He is one of three Japanese in the top-50 alongside Ren Yonezawa (10th) and Keita Nakajima who has retained his number one position.