Keita Nakajima winning at Panasonic Open  5th amateur to win on Regular Tour

Last week at Casio World Open, Keita Nakajima made the cutline as usual and finished at 14T. At the winner's ceremony, when Keita received Lowest Amateur award, he was told "What? Best Amateur? You must be kidding, your already among top professional".

Keita played along with Takumi Kanaya and Ryo Hisatsune for the first 2 rounds at Kochi Kuroshio CC. Both were teammates from the National Team. Takumi is Keita's elder, but Ryo is younger. But still Keita says, "Ryo may be younger than me, but he is already professional golfer so I wanted to be polite to both of them, since I am still an amateur."

On Keita's 3rd Round, he played with Shingo Katayama and referred as "he is like living golf dictionary. He has great experiences and knows everything. He is capable of doing anything. I am honored to have the chance to play with him on the tournament".

Keita won at the Asian-Pacific Amateur Championship held in Dubai last month. He has earned the ticket to next year's The Masters. During his restriction period, he was ill with stomach flu. After that just before the Casio World Open, he took COVID-19 vaccine and due to side effects he was felling unhealthy and his 1st round was unpleasant result at 47T. But as the days go by, his performance was back to his top level and as for the weekend, he played bogey free rounds and made the professionals admire him.

Keita is making appearance to the Golf Nippon Series JT Cup with the victory which he accomplished at Panasonic Open in September. He became the 5th amateur to win at the Regular Tour.

This week's venue Tokyo Yomiuri CC is just 20 minutes' drive from his Nippon Taiiku University dormitory. After his practice round, he went to his university to join the golf team practice and also had the team meeting regarding Keita becoming next captain of the golf team.

He is surely the busiest amateur in Japan. This week he will be making a climax ending of his dramatic year. He will be the 3rd amateur to make appearance at JT Cup following Ryo Ishikawa in 2007 and Hideki Matsuyama in 2011.

"I hope I could pull through the 4 rounds with my style."

From what Keita has accomplished so far this year, there could be a good chance for Keita to become the first amateur to win at this prestige tournament.