A team of six Australians are out to break the drought and become the first from their country to win the prestigious Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific in Thailand starting on Thursday.

Justice Bosio, Caitlin Peirce, Abbie Teasdale, Jazy Roberts, Sarah Hammett and Annika Rathbone are all in the field for an event that carries major championship implications.

Since its inception in 2018, Kelsey Bennett’s runner-up finish in 2021 is the best result by an Aussie.

Bosio, Peirce, Teasdale, Roberts and Hammett all competed last year in Singapore while NSW star Rathbone is in her first appearance in the WAAP.

Life-changing opportunities await the winner of the WAAP with the champion receiving exemptions into three major championships in 2024 - the AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews, the Amundi Evian Championship in France and the Chevron Championship in the United States of America.

The winner will also receive invitations to a handful of other elite championships such as the Hana Financial Group Championship, ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open, The 121st Women’s Amateur Championship and the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

In total, 22 countries and territories are represented in this year’s WAAP at Siam Country Club, including, for the first time, Samoa for whom Faith Vui will fly the flag, emulating the feat of her brothers, Niko and Lio Vui, who have both competed in the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship.

The 18-year-old Faith won last year’s New Zealand Women’s Amateur Championship, the first Samoan to do so.

Also making their WAAP debuts this year are Harmonie Yin who is representing Cambodia, and 12-year-old Sabrina Wong of Hong Kong, China, who will be the youngest player in the field. The international nature of golf today is illustrated by the fact that Yin lives in France and Wong is based in Scotland.

Remarkably, there will be two sets of sisters representing Pakistan – Parkha and Rimsha Ijaz and Abiha and Daniha Syed.

More than a third of the players in the field will feel at home having competed at the SCC’s Waterside Course in the fourth iteration of the WAAP in 2022.

In the first five editions of the WAAP, players from Thailand (Atthaya Thitikul and Eila Galitsky), Japan (Yuka Yasuda and Mizuki Hashimoto) and Chinese Taipei (Ting-hsuan Huang) have held aloft the sought-after trophy.

The WAAP championship was developed by The R&A and the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation (APGC) to inspire future generations of women golfers. The R&A is supported by championship event partners that share its commitment to developing golf in the Asia-Pacific. The Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific championship is proudly supported by Hana Financial Group, ISPS Handa, Nippon Kabaya Ohayo Holdings, Puma, Samsung, Singha, Ricoh and Rolex. Tournament information, scoring