Kayun Mudadana and Sam Cascio have been selected in a seven-strong Australian team chasing a fifth individual title, and the life-changing prizes that go with it, at October’s Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in New Zealand.
The 2026 championship will be played at Te Arai Links’ South Course from October 29 to November 1, with the winner earning a start in both the Masters Tournament at Augusta National and The Open Championship.
Mudadana, a former Cam Smith Scholarship recipient representing the New South Wales Golf Club, arrives in career-best form. He was runner-up in this year’s adidas Australian Amateur Championship, won the Avondale Amateur, and finished equal fifth in the prestigious Western Amateur Championship in the United States. It’s his second APAC appearance, having also featured in the field in 2025.
Cascio, who plays out of The Australian Golf Club and Wollongong Golf Club, heads to Te Arai as the reigning NT Amateur and Wollongong Open champion, and the 2024 Australian Junior Amateur champion. He’s no stranger to Australian colours this year, having already represented the country at the Toyota Junior World Cup in Nagoya and the Junior World Championships at Torrey Pines. Te Arai will mark his APAC debut.
They’re joined in the Australian squad by Harry Takis, Graham Hourn, Harrison Gomez, Wesley Hinton and Rick Heath, with Ritchie Smith as coach, Rick Kulacz as team manager and Jacinta Caroll as physiotherapist.
Selection for the championship is determined by the World Amateur Golf Ranking, and this year’s field is limited to 120 starters. Since its creation in 2009 by the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation, The R&A and the Masters Tournament, the event has produced four Australian champions in the past decade: Antonio Murdaca (2014), Curtis Luck (2016), Harrison Crowe (2022) and Jasper Stubbs, whose 2023 win came on home soil at Royal Melbourne.
Designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and opened in 2022, Te Arai Links’ South Course sits 75 minutes north of Auckland and regularly ranks among the world’s top 100 courses. Sixteen of its holes look directly out over the Pacific, with firm, fast fescue turf built across natural sand dunes.
For Mudadana and Cascio, it’s a chance to add their names to that list of Australian winners, and the state will be watching closely from October 29.
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