{"id":25657,"date":"2025-10-26T10:40:33","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T14:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/26\/thai-amateur-fifa-lao-pakdee-secures-masters-open-spot\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T10:40:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T14:40:33","slug":"thai-amateur-fifa-lao-pakdee-secures-masters-open-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/26\/thai-amateur-fifa-lao-pakdee-secures-masters-open-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"Thai amateur FIFA Lao Pakdee secures Masters Open spot"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Phonsapak “FIFA” Raopakdee rallied from a six-stroke deficit with a 4-under 68 to defeat 16-year-old Taisei Nagasaki of Japan in the third playoff to win the Asia Pacific Amateur and qualify for next year’s Masters and British Open Championship.<\/p>\n

Laopakdee, a junior at Arizona State University, became the first player from Thailand to win the championship, which began in 2010.<\/p>\n

Rao Pakdee’s winning shot turned out to be a 6-iron on the 18th of the Emirates Golf Club’s Majlis Course that stayed on the slope above the yellow hazard line and cleared a pond with inches to spare. From there it was simple ups and downs until five consecutive birdies until the regulation 17th hole.<\/p>\n

Laopakdee reportedly told Arizona State University coach Matt Thurmond, “I will win this tournament and become the first Thai amateur to play in the Masters.”<\/p>\n

After the game, he turned to the camera and said, “Coach, you did it!”<\/p>\n

Nagasaki, who started the final round with a five-stroke lead over Rintaro Nakano, tied Laopakdee with a two-stroke swing on the 15th hole. But the Japanese teenager responded with an 18-foot birdie on the 16th, drove in a reachable par-4 for birdie on the 17th, and hit an exquisite chip shot to 4 feet on the final par-5 hole.<\/p>\n

However, he missed the winning birdie putt and finished with a 74, tying him with Lao Pakdee at 15-under 273. Laopakdee was forced up and down from the back bunker to birdie the final two. He shot a 5-under 32 on the back nine.<\/p>\n

“After finishing No. 18, I had no idea I’d hit 5 under on the back nine,” Raopakdee said. “It was great golf. Shout out to Taisei. He made my life so much harder.”<\/p>\n

More sensational shots followed in the playoffs. Nagasaki opted for a layup on the 18th, and after Rao Pakdee made a birdie from behind the green, he clipped a wedge above the water to 2 feet for birdie to stay in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Laopakdee used his power on No. 17, which is reachable in the playoffs, and set up another simple up-and-down, and Nagasaki made a wonderful pitch to score a birdie.<\/p>\n

But on the 18th, the third playoff hole, Nagasaki went too far to the left of the green and his chip from a sticky lie weighed down, leaving him about 35 feet out. He got par with two putts.<\/p>\n

“I’m very disappointed,” Nagasaki said through an interpreter as he wiped his tears with his shirt. \u201cWe really struggled to score.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nakano finished with a 71, taking third place for the second year in a row.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Phonsapak “FIFA” Raopakdee rallied from a six-stroke deficit with a 4-under 68 to defeat 16-year-old Taisei Nagasaki of Japan in the third playoff to win the Asia Pacific Amateur and qualify for next year’s Masters and British Open Championship. Laopakdee, a junior at Arizona State University, became the first player […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[17],"class_list":{"0":"post-25657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}