DUBAI — When you’re 16 years of age, heartbreaks usually have nothing to do with Augusta National and the Open Championship.
That is, unless you’re a sublimely gifted teen golfer from Japan chasing a spot in the Masters and The Open via a win at the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship.
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The story of Taisei Nagasaki losing in a thrilling playoff this weekend at Dubai’s Emirates Golf Club was almost as compelling as the tournament’s winner, Thai golfer Fifa Laopakdee.
That is the power of a tournament created jointly in 2009 by Augusta National and the R&A to grow golf in regions around the world. The Asia-Pacific can simultaneously change an amateur’s career and teach the runner/s up and contenders a harsh—yet invaluable—a lesson about the margins of golf at the highest level.
During Sunday’s final moments of the TV broadcast, there were moving scenes at the Emirates G.C. when Nagasaki was captured bowing to the renowned Dubai course. It was a gesture of respect, an acknowledgment of gratitude for the mere opportunity to have a short putt in regulation that, had it dropped, would have secured a drive up Magnolia Lane and a trip to Royal Birkdale.
It showed maturity for a golfer born in the same year as the tournament: 2009. Nagasaki, who hails from Miyazaki on the Japanese island of Kyushu, won the Boys’ 12-14 division of the 2024 Japan Junior Championship while he finished runner-up in the Boys’ 13-14 division of the Junior World Championships in San Diego the same year. He has results on some of junior golf’s biggest stages.
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Perhaps nothing, though, can prepare a golfer for the pressure of a putt to gain entry into two majors—even when leading by five shots after three rounds. Nagasaki had been struggling on the final day, with six bogeys and just two birdies in 14 holes, but he hung in there. On the 72nd hole, he faced a brutal up and down from behind a greenside bunker to green sloping away from him. He produced an exquisite pitch shot to four feet.
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Missing the putt didn’t deter Nagasaki from continuing the fight in a playoff, until he blinked on the third extra hole against Laopakdee. A pitch shot Nagasaki caught heavy led to a par, and Laopakdee made birdie to become the first Thai to win the event.
And then came the bow, after knocking in a gut-wrenching par putt. Moments later, Nagasaki broke down while speaking through a translator about the loss on the Asia-Pacific broadcast. “When I think of big stages like the Masters and the Open, I still get nervous, and I feel that I’m not yet strong enough mentally,” he said. “I will practice more and get winning experiences to win at this stage next year.”
Nagasaki’s bow was reminiscent of an iconic version of the same gesture by Hideki Matsuyama’s caddie, Shota Hayafuji, after his boss won the 2021 Masters—10 years after claiming his second Asia-Pacific Amateur victory. Hayafuji’s bow drew the applause of sports fans around the world, yet the ancient practice is common in Japan, from retail stores to sporting events and offices around the country.
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Perhaps, but golf had not seen one on a grand stage since the 2021 Masters. And at the Emirates G.C., it was special to see such grace in defeat. Perhaps even more so from a teenager.
