Amateurs take first, fourth and eighth as Samoa Open field grows by more than 45 per cent

Second consecutive amateur champion strengthens the case for investment in Pacific golf.

Friday, 14 August 2026 – Apia, Samoa – An amateur has won the Samoa Open Championship for the second-year running, finishing four strokes clear of the leading professional in a field of 83 players at Faleata Golf Course.

Rajat Rai returned rounds of 68, 67 and 72 for a fifty four hole total of 207, nine under par. Steven Binns of the Fiji PGA finished second on 211, and Tomasi Tuivuna, also Fiji PGA, third on 212. Amateurs took first, fourth and eighth places overall against a field that included fifteen professionals.

Rai follows Aaron Evalu, who in 2025 won the Samoa Open and the Samoa Amateur Championship in the same week and earned qualification for the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Dubai. Evalu returned to Faleata this year and finished eighth overall on 218. Two years, two amateur champions, and a pattern that Samoa Golf Incorporated says is no accident.

“This is what happens when you invest in young people early, and in a sport that builds discipline, camaraderie and skill,” said SGI President Leiataua Isikuki Punivalu. “Golf has long been seen as a sport for the wealthy and the well connected. Our champions are proof that talent does not care where you come from. It only asks whether anyone gave you the chance to develop it.”

The field, not just the leaderboard

The 2026 championship recorded the strongest participation in the tournament’s recent history. The field grew from 57 players in 2025 to 83 in 2026, an increase of more than 45 per cent. The amateur field grew from 40 players to 68, an increase of 70 per cent.

That growth is concentrated exactly where SGI has directed its development work. The professional field remained steady at fifteen, while local and regional amateurs, including juniors, entered in numbers the tournament has not previously seen.

In the women’s division, Olive Tapu was crowned 2026 ACP National Women’s Champion with rounds of 71, 75 and 78 for a total of 224, finishing fourteenth overall in the mixed field. Shantael Ligaliga finished nineteenth overall. Both competed on the same course, over the same three days, as the professional field.

The engine behind the results

Behind both championship victories sits the same unglamorous work: Samoa Golf Incorporated and Junior Golf Samoa, the development pathway through which SGI and its partners identify and coach young players from primary school age. Clubs and balls are provided at junior sessions, so equipment and cost are not a barrier to a child starting. It is long term work of coaching, handicapping and junior competition that rarely makes headlines, until it produces a national champion two years running.

SGI is using this year’s result to make a wider case: that Samoa and the Pacific hold a depth of sporting talent that international sporting bodies, donors and governments have largely overlooked.

“Golf has a reputation for being closed off, played on manicured courses far from places like ours,” said Punivalu. “Our players are proof that success in this sport is achievable for Samoa. What we are asking is simple. Invest in us. The potential for growth here is enormous, and the benefits, economic, social, in tourism and in youth development, far outweigh the cost.”

A destination as well as a championship

SGI maintains that Samoa is well positioned to become a premium golf destination in the Pacific, a place where local players, visitors and touring professionals compete on the same course. Championship week draws international players, officials, families and supporters into Samoa, generating direct activity for accommodation, air travel, hospitality, transport and local suppliers.

Leiataua says this year’s growth is more significant given the constraints under which it was delivered, with limited funding and a tournament rebuilt after a period of disruption.

“We did this with limited resources, and we still delivered a tournament our players, our sponsors and our country can be proud of,” said Punivalu. “Imagine what we could build with real investment behind us.”

Looking to 2027

SGI has confirmed it will continue to deliver the championship in partnership with the Fiji PGA, and is already preparing for 2027.

“Next year has much more to offer,” said Punivalu. “We want to keep lifting this tournament for Samoa, for our partners at the Fiji PGA, and for Pacific people everywhere. Most of all, we want our young people to keep seeing themselves in this sport.”