New Delhi, India: Reigning All India amateur champion Anshul Mishra and promising Rakshit Dahiya will spearhead India’s challenge for a maiden Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship (AAC) title.
Completing a four-strong Indian line-up at Emirates Golf Club’s Majlis Course from October 23-26 in the 16th edition of the AAC will be Raghav Gulati and Ranveer Mitroo.
Since the AAC was launched in 2009, the best performance by an Indian came from Rayhan Thomas in Singapore in 2018 when he finished joint runner-up with Keita Nakajima, whose fellow-Japanese Takumi Kanaya triumphed.
The AAC offers the most attractive prizes in amateur golf. The champion in Dubai will receive an invitation to the 2026 Masters Tournament and an exemption into The 154th Open, 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.
Of the Indian quartet, only Dahiya has previous AAC experience. At the Taiheiyo Club in Gotemba last year he tied for 37th.
Dahiya has enjoyed a good year to date, winning the Delhi Golf Club Juniors, Delhi NCR Cup and Samarvir Sahi, all prominent events on India’s amateur calendar. His standout performance came on the Professional Golfers Tour of India, where he registered a top-10 finish at the Coal India Open against some of India’s top pros. He is currently 339th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), the highest rated of the four Indians heading to Dubai.
Mishra, winner of the 132-year-old All India Amateur in 2024, is 485th in the WAGR. This year he’s finished second at the FCG Callaway event in the US, had top-10s in Dubai and Singapore and participated in a series of prominent junior events in the US, including the Boys Junior PGA, US Junior Amateur and Uswing Mowing Junior World.
Gulati, 541st in the WAGR, is familiar with golfing in Dubai having won twice there – the Faldo Junior Tour Middle East and the Tommy Fleetwood International Pathway Series event presented by DP World.
For his part, Mitroo has posted top-10s this year at the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation (APGC) Junior Boys’ Championship in Hong Kong and an American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) event in the US. He is 618th in the WAGR.
A field of 120 will tee-off in this year’s AAC, an event which was established in 2009 by the APGC, The R&A and the Masters Tournament to further develop amateur golf in the Asia-Pacific region.
