Skaik leads UAE charge and chase Masters, Open Championship spots

The UAE's Ahmad Skaik believes he is in the best possible shape ahead of his sixth outing at the prestigious Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship (October 23– 26), with the Emirati star eyeing an invitation to the 2026 Masters Tournament and exemption into The 154th Open as he tees it up at Emirates Golf Club this week.

Created in 2009, the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship was established by the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation (APGC), The R&A and the Masters Tournament to further develop amateur golf in the Asia-Pacific region.

The champion will receive an invitation to the 2026 Masters Tournament and an exemption into The 154th Open; the runner(s)-up will receive an exemption into The Open Qualifying Series; while the top-three finishers will receive an exemption into The 131st Amateur Championship.

It's those two invitations to two of the game's biggest competitions that Skaik is looking to secure this week, capping off what has been a stellar season. The Emirati's 18-under-par total of 270 set a new record for the lowest score in GCC Golf Championship history earlier this year and marked the largest winning margin in the tournament's individual category.

His dominant display helped secure the UAE's first-ever team gold medal, with Skaik finishing an incredible 15 shots ahead of the silver medalist.

He followed that up by becoming the first Emirati in history to make the cut in a European Tour group-sanctioned event at the 2025 UAE Challenge.

Buoyed by those two achievements, the 28-year-old is feeling as confident as ever heading into the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship.

"When I played this Championship before, my thinking was always to just try and make the cut," said Skaik, who will be joined by five other players representing the UAE this week at Emirates Golf Club.

"However, this time, I just want to win. I know this course well and I think I've proved I can play good golf at a high level. I've prepped well, know the course, which I think gives me an advantage, so hopefully I can use that."

"In the GCC Championship I didn't expect to shoot that score, especially with the conditions we were playing in, and I won by 15 shots – it just shows that anything can happen on any given week. Why not click this week and do the same?"

Skaik is joined in the field by his brother Mohammad, along with Rayan, Ahmed, Rashed Al Emadi, Sam Mullane and Jonathan Selvaraj – many of whom echoed Ahmad Skaik's sentiments in the pre-tournament press conference, believing they could hold the edge over their opponents having played the Majlis Course previously.

"Obviously playing two Major Championships is a dream," said Ahmed.

"Getting that opportunity here in our own country gives us a big advantage and hopefully we can use that to make our country proud."

The UAE sextet will go up against some of the region's finest amateur players, with Thailand's Fifa Laopakdee the highest-ranked player in the field at 53rd in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. Fellow Thai Ratchanon "TK" Chantananuwat (No. 102), Australia's Harry Takis (No. 90), Hong Kong, China's Jeffrey Shen (No. 113), and China's Ziqin Zhou (No. 132), who finished runner-up last year in Japan, are among the other notable contenders.

Notable past competitors include 2021 Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama, a two-time winner of the Asia-Pacific Amateur, and 2022 Open champion Cameron Smith. Over the Championship’s 15-year history, the Championship has served as a springboard to some of the world’s top players, including Matsuyama, 2018 champion Takumi Kanaya and 2021 champion Keita Nakajima of Japan, Smith, Cameron Davis and Min Woo Lee of Australia, New Zealand’s Ryan Fox, the Republic of Korea’s Si Woo Kim and Chinese Taipei’s C.T. Pan. Collectively, alumni of the Asia-Pacific Amateur have gone on to win 33 tournaments on the PGA Tour to date and more than 140 events across major professional tours.

Designed by Karl Litten and established in 1988 as the first grass course in the Middle East, Emirates Golf Club’s Majlis Course is located south of downtown Dubai and enjoys views of the city’s skyline. The Majlis Course annually serves as the host of the DP World Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic, an event won by the likes of Seve Ballesteros, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Ernie Els, the latter of which owns the course record of 61. Australia’s Lucas Herbert won the Dubai Desert Classic in 2020 to become the first alum to win the event five years after his final appearance at the Asia-Pacific Amateur. Emirates Golf Club will host the Asia-Pacific Amateur for the first time.