WAAP Champion Confirmed for Queen Sirikit Cup

Singapore: Mizuki Hashimoto will be seeking to add to her collection of silverware when she spearheads the Japanese team at the 42nd Queen Sirikit Cup.

Hashimoto gained international headlines last November when she triumphed in Abu Dhabi in the third edition of the Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific (WAAP), the region’s foremost individual tournament for females.

Now the 19-year-old is aiming to lead her country to victory in the Amateur Ladies Asia-Pacific Invitational Golf Team Championship, to be staged from May 24-27 over the Masters Course at Singapore’s Laguna National Golf Resort Club.

For Hashimoto it will be her debut appearance in the 13-nation event that was last staged in Australia in early 2019.

For Hashimoto and her team-mates, Ayaka Tezuka and Miku Ueta, it will be an opportunity to end a 20-year victory drought for their country in the Queen Sirikit Cup.

The last of Japan’s five successes came in 2002 when Ai Miyazato proved the star of the show at Malaysia’s A’Famosa Golf Resort.

Although her WAAP triumph is still fresh in the memory, Hashimoto is the lowest ranked of the three-strong Japanese team in 39th place in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR).

Tezuka, runner-up in last year’s Japan Women’s Amateur Championship and tied 16th at the WAAP, is 31st.

Fellow 16-year-old Ueta, third in the 2021 Japan Junior Championship and 28th at the WAAP, rose to 21st in the WAGR after a fifth-place finish in the Japan LPGA Tour’s Yamaha Ladies Open Katsuragi.

Rae-Vadee T. Suwan, Secretary-General of the Queen Sirikit Cup, said: “After the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve been looking forward to having the Queen Sirikit Cup take place in 2022.

“Our grateful thanks go to Laguna National and the Singapore Ladies Golf Association (SLGA), the tournament organisers, for their support and enthusiasm.”

Traditionally, the Queen Sirikit Cup has comprised three-player teams competing over 54 holes of individual stroke play with the two best daily scores from each team counting towards the overall totals. Commencing in 2022, the tournament is being extended to 72 holes over four rounds.

Over the past five decades, the event has been graced by many of the best-known names in women’s golf, including Australians Karrie Webb and Minjee Lee, China's Feng Shanshan, Chinese Taipei's Tseng Ya-ni, Japan's Miyazato, Koreans Pak Se-ri and Shin Ji-yai, New Zealander Lydia Ko and Thais Patty Tavatanakit and Atthaya Thiutikul.