The 2018 Amata Friendship Cup (; ) was the first edition of the

Amata Friendship Cup The Amata Friendship Cup is a team golf tournament for male and female professional and amateur golfers contested by teams representing Thailand and Japan. It is the first mixed-gender team event for professional and amateur golfers with a simila ...

matches, held 21–23 December at the

Amata Spring Country Club The Amata Spring Country Club is a private golf and country club near to Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. It hosted two high-profile golf tournaments which were introduced in 2006, the Royal Trophy is a team competition between Europe and Asia and ...

Chonburi Chonburi (, , IAST: , ) is the capital of Chonburi Province and, as part of the district Mueang Chonburi District, Mueang Chonburi, the List of municipalities in Thailand, seventh-largest city in Thailand. It is about 100 km southeast of Ba ...

, Thailand. The Amata Friendship Cup is a team competition between the top mixed-gender professional and amateur golfers from

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It is a three-day

match play Match play is a scoring system for golf in which a player, or team, earns a point for each hole in which they have bested their opponents; as opposed to stroke play, in which the total number of strokes is counted over one or more rounds of 18 h ...

event between teams of twelve players with a similar format to the

Ryder Cup The Ryder Cup is a biennial men's golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States, with hosting duties alternating between venues in Europe and the United States for each edition. The cup is named after the English businessman S ...

and

Solheim Cup The Solheim Cup is a biennial golf tournament for professional women golfers contested by teams representing Europe and the United States. It is named after the Norwegian- American golf club manufacturer Karsten Solheim, who was a driving forc ...

Boonchu Ruangkit Boonchu Ruangkit (born 12 May 1956) is a Thai professional golfer who plays on the Champions Tour. Early life As a young man, Boonchu tried for a career in kick boxing, but he gave it up after being knocked out cold in his third bout. He made hi ...

and

Virada Nirapathpongporn Virada Nirapathpongporn (, born 21 April 1982) is a Thai former professional golfer who won the 2003 U.S. Women's Amateur. Nirapathpongporn was born in Bangkok, Thailand. She attended Duke University, where she won the 2002 NCAA Division I Cha ...

captained the Thai team and

Naomichi Ozaki ) is a Japanese professional golfer. Professional career Ozaki was born in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. He turned professional in 1977 and won 32 tournaments on the Japan Golf Tour between 1984 and 2005. He ranks fourth on the list of most ...

and

Miho Koga is a feminine Japanese given name. It can have many different meanings in Japanese depending on the kanji used. Possible Japanese writings Miho can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: *実穂, "truth, ear of grain" *美穂, ...

captained the Japanese team. Team Thailand won by a score of 15–13.

Format

The Amata Friendship Cup is a

event, with each match worth one point. The format is as follows: *Day 1 (Friday): Four foursome (alternate shot) matches in a morning session and four fourball (better ball) matches in an afternoon session. *Day 2 (Saturday): Four foursome (alternate shot) matches in a morning session and four fourball (better ball) matches in an afternoon session. *Day 3 (Sunday): 12 singles matches. All 12 players from each team participate.

Teams

Each team consisted of five male professionals, five female professionals, one male and one female amateur.

Team Thailand

Team Japan

Day one

''Friday, 21 December 2018''

Morning foursomes

The opening round of four fourball matches started at 7:15 am

local time Local time is the time observed in a specific locality. There is no canonical definition. Originally it was mean solar time, but since the introduction of time zones it is generally the time as determined by the time zone in effect, with daylight s ...

. The first point of the 2018 Amata Friendship Cup was won by Team Japan, with

Ryuko Tokimatsu is a Japanese professional golfer. Tokimatsu plays on the Japan Golf Tour and the Japan Challenge Tour. He had one win on each tour in 2016. Tokimatsu made his debut on American soil at the 2018 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, having qualified b ...

and Erika Hara winning 6 & 5 against

Prayad Marksaeng Prayad Marksaeng (; born 30 January 1966) is a Thai professional golfer. Career Prayad was a member of Thailand's winning golf team at the 1987 South East Asian Games and turned professional in 1991. He has been a member of the Asian Tour since ...

and

Moriya Jutanugarn Moriya Jutanugarn (; ; born 28 July 1994) is a Thai professional golfer. In 2009, Jutanugarn became the first female to win the Duke of York Young Champions Trophy. In 2013, she was named LPGA Rookie of the Year. She has played on the LPGA Tou ...

Prom Meesawat Prom Meesawat (born 21 July 1984) is a Thai professional golfer. He won his age group at the World Junior Golf Championships in 1997 and 2002 and was Asia Pacific Junior Champion several times. He won the Thailand Open Amateur Championship in 20 ...

and Pannarat Thanapolboonyaras came from two down after the fourth and fifth hole to beat

Masahiro Kawamura is a Japanese professional golfer who plays on the European Tour, having previously played on the Japan Golf Tour and the Asian Tour. Kawamura won his first title in 2013 at the Asia-Pacific Panasonic Open on the Japan Golf Tour, a tournament ...

and Mami Fukuda two up. Jaidee and Thidapa Suwannapura also won by one against Kodai Ichihara and Sakura Koiwai one up. In the last match, Aphibarnrat and Thitikul won the seventeenth hole to halve

Satoshi Kodaira is a Japanese professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and Japan Golf Tour. While playing on the Japan Golf Tour, Kodaira has had seven victories, including two Japan Golf Tour majors, the 2013 Japan Golf Tour Championship Shishido Hills ...

and Yuri Yoshida, and to end the first morning 2–1 in favour of Team Thailand.

Afternoon four-ball

The afternoon session was won by team Thailand. It started at 12:00 pm

Jazz Janewattananond Atiwit "Jazz" Janewattananond (; born 26 November 1995) is a Thai professional golfer who currently plays on the Asian Tour and formerly the European Tour. Professional career Janewattananond turned professional in December 2010. In September 20 ...

and

Pornanong Phatlum Pornanong Phatlum (; born 4 December 1989) is a Thai professional golfer playing on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour. Professional wins (22) Ladies Asian Golf Tour wins (9) ^ ''Co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour.'' Ladies European Tour wins ( ...

won 3 & 2 over

Hideto Tanihara is a Japanese professional golfer. He has won 18 tournaments on the Japan Golf Tour. Professional career Tanihara has won 14 tournaments on the Japan Golf Tour and featured in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking. His highest ranking ...

and

Nasa Hataoka is a Japanese professional golfer. She has won six times on the LPGA Tour and six times on the LPGA of Japan Tour. Amateur career Hataoka was born on 13 January 1999, named after the United States space program, NASA. As an amateur, she won the ...

and

Ariya Jutanugarn Ariya Jutanugarn (, , ; born 23 November 1995) is a Thai professional golfer who plays on the American-based LPGA Tour. She was born in Bangkok. She is the first golfer, male or female, from Thailand to win a major championship. She became the nu ...

won the last hole to halve Kodai Ichihara and Fumika Kawagishi,

and Erika Hara won for the second time, this time 4 & 3 over

/ Pannarat Thanapolboonyaras. The fourt pairing,

Sadom Kaewkanjana Sadom Kaewkanjana (; born 6 July 1998) is a Thai professional golfer who plays on the Asian Tour where he has won twice. Kaewkanjana won his first Asian Tour event in 2019 at the Bangabandhu Cup Golf Open which made him the fastest qualifying sch ...

and

won over

Yuto Katsuragawa Yuto Katsuragawa (, born 9 October 1998) is a Japanese professional golfer who plays on the Japan Golf Tour and European Tour. He has won the ISPS Handa Championship twice. Career Katsuragawa turned professional in the fall of 2020 and won his ...

and Sakura Koiwai one up.

Day two

''Saturday, 22 December 2018''

Morning foursomes

Afternoon four-ball

Day three

''Sunday, 23 December 2018''

Singles

Individual player records

Each entry refers to the win–loss–half record of the player.

Thailand

Japan

Partners

References

External links

* {{coord, 37.380, 126.624, type:event, display=title Amata Friendship Cup Golf tournaments in Thailand