This golfer just punched a Masters ticket, but he’s saying he won’t go

Wenyi Ding stepped to the tee box on the first playoff hole at last year’s Asia-Pacific Amateur and began, for the first time, to dream.

The field of 120 players had dwindled down to just three, and Ding, the 2022 U.S. Junior Amateur winner, needed just one good hole to win the event hosted annually by Augusta National, by extension punching his ticket into the Masters.

Heartbreak followed. Ding flamed out on the first playoff hole, and amateur Jasper Stubbs went on to win the event and clinch a spot in golf’s first major.

This year, Ding stepped to the tee box on the last hole at the Asia-Pacific Amateur with a different dream in mind. Not because he wasn’t in contention. Not because a spot in the Masters wasn’t on the line. But rather because Ding, a 19-year-old battling through golf’s amateur ranks, had already made one of his golf career’s hardest decisions: He wouldn’t go.

Ding would go on to win the 2024 Asia-Pacific Amateur on Sunday at Taiheiyo Club Gotemba in Fuji, Japan, outlasting a field of 120 to beat fellow Chinese youngster Ziqin Zhou by one stroke. The win immediately marked one of the inflection points in the career of one of golf’s bright young stars, guaranteeing the world’s fifth-ranked amateur an invitation into the Masters and the Open Championship.

But one can only imagine the conflicting emotions flowing through Ding as he entered the winner’s circle believing that he would be one of the few golfers to turn down an invite to the Masters. You see, Ding had plans far outlasting his start in the APA to turn pro following the tournament through the DP World Tour’s Global Amateur Pathway, which guarantees a tour card to the world’s leading non-collegiate amateur golfer.

The opportunity was something of a golf golden ticket — the chance to compete on a high-level professional tour, for real-life money, with the sort of job security rarely afforded to an amateur player. It was the sort of opportunity a player of Ding’s status couldn’t turn down. Still, there was a rub: His invitation into the Masters and Open Championship for winning the APA was contingent on maintaining his amateur status.

“It was difficult, but I can’t sacrifice [DP World Tour status] to wait for the Masters [and Open],” Ding told Golf Digest’s Evin Priest. “I know it’s a great [opportunity] for an amateur player, but I’m going to turn pro. [Hopefully], I can get in [those two majors] by myself. [I want to] learn how to be a professional player and keep improving. I want to try to make the cut at every tournament and, if I have a chance, try to win.”

Of course, there’s a chance that Ding could find himself in contention for a Masters slot nonetheless. The club maintains absolute authority to doll out invitations to the Masters each year, and could theoretically invite Ding to compete as a pro in the event.

But that will have to wait until later this year and early next year, when the club releases its invitations. For now, Ding is the rarest kind of Asia-Pacific Amateur winner — the kind who will leave the course on Sunday without the expectation of teeing it up in Augusta next April.