Takumi Kanaya

Still an amateur when he won the Japan Tour’s Mitsui Sumitomo Visa Taiheiyo Masters in 2019, finishing 63-65, and three weeks later his share of third place in the Emirates Australian Open was good enough for one of the three Open Qualifying Series spots on offer, because runner-up Louis Oosthuizen was already exempt.

Kanaya topped the World Amateur Golf Rankings for 55 weeks, then on turning professional in 2020 he had to wait a mere month before lifting the Dunlop Phoenix title.

The following April he added the Token Homemate Cup and with 12 more top-10 finishes in 2021 he entered the world’s top 50 and qualified for St Andrews by finishing second to Chan Kim on the Japanese money list.

Kanaya was only 20 when he made the halfway cut at the 2019 Masters and missed it by just one stroke on his Open debut at Royal Portrush three months later.

He nearly qualified for Royal Troon at the age of 17 after finishing only one shot behind Yuta Ikeda in the Japan Open. He is a former Japan Amateur and Asia-Pacific Amateur Champion and in 2018 he was also an Asian Games gold medallist.