HappyCamper wrote:SteveJJ wrote:Yes are any of the relegated Asian players not entered into this? Surprising that some of them didn't try Thailand... in particular Sunny Akani.
Any of the amateur Asian players (not just relegated) entered in this got any pedigree? Other than Lucky Vatnani, Wang Yuchen, Sohail Vahedi, Bai Langning and Andy Lee (if that is the former pro).
Unless I'm missing his name, Kamihasi of Japan isn't listed so maybe he's off to Thailand.
Brutal first rounder for Fergal and Liam Davies considering it will scupper one of their order of merit chances
Goa Yang, Zhao Jianbo, and Sunny Akani all entered the Ponds Forge event. Also Farakh Ajaib too, although he was born in England and represents Pakistan from his parents iirc. The original announcement did state it was for entrants resident in Asia Pacific, not sure how WST interpreted that for recent pros who were based in the UK. Or maybe the extra cost and hassle of travel to Thailand wasn't worth it.
Cheung Kawai won a challenge tour event a couple season ago, he qualified for the playoffs but couldn't participate when the pandemic started. Be interesting to see what he can do.
Yes, it did say that it's for entrants 'primarily resident in Asia', but it would be ridiculous to consider professionals from Asia as primarily resident in the UK. If that were to be the case, then players who qualify from the Asian Q School who got relegated 2 years later would have to play in the UK Q School, meaning that all the qualifiers from Asia would be rookies. Considering how most of the qualifiers from UK Q Schools tend to be previous professionals, it creates an imbalance between the two different routes.
With most of the best Asian 'amateurs' (Sunny Akani, Gao Yang, Zhao Jianbo, Bai Langning, Wang Yuchen, Cheung Ka Wai, Liu Hongyu, Deng Haohui) playing in the UK, it looks like the Bangkok qualifiers could be very weak. Of course it would be great to have Kei Kamihashi on tour, and I assume Luo Honghao will be in the running. But we're going to have enough weak players on tour next year anyway, and some very good players who don't make it through Q School.
Do we know if the Asian Q School has an Order of Merit for top-up places? Do they get to play on Q Tour? It's beginning to look like this whole venture is a shambles. Not for the first time, WST have created a mess of a system.