By Camilla Tait Robb
With his first appearance in a Rolex Series event upon him, Wenyi Ding looks settled into life on the DP World Tour in a way he didn’t a year ago.
His father is here with him, as he was through every step of Ding’s rookie season, helping him to navigate through language barriers, travel complexities and achieving an understanding of Tour life.
Those difficulties seem easier in a second season, and there’s an evident newfound steadiness and self-belief that Ding has worked hard to ingrain as we sit down to talk about his first season on Tour.
It’s well earned, too. As is his place in the field for the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, following a debut season that suggested his remarkable amateur promise is already translating into professional substance.
Because before this, before the DP World Tour card and the top five finishes and the runner-up spot that opened this season in Australia, Ding was something of a Chinese prodigy, winning faster than he was growing.
Yet, there wasn’t a consideration that he would turn professional early, because Ding has always been the kind of player who listens more closely to his own internal barometer than to any external noise.
Even as his talent attracted attention and the results piled up, he kept feeling like there was more work to do, more growing to do, more game to build before he could stand alongside the players he admired.
“I think when I was 14, 15, I think... I knew I had a chance to turn pro if I keep doing what I'm doing,” he says, speaking to the DP World Tour at Emirates Golf Club. “And every year I try to be better.
“I think when I was 16 or 17, I tried Q School once for the Korn Ferry Tour. That time I passed the first stage, but when I was playing the second stage, I didn't feel I was ready to turn pro. So I withdrew from that.”
He grabbed headlines in 2020, a runner-up finish on the China Tour’s Volvo China Open as an amateur, but it wasn’t long before the Covid-19 global pandemic impacted him.
He still achieved great things, winning as an amateur at the Boao Classic and winning the Chinese Amateur for a third time in a row, but his ability to travel stalled progression. Between 2021 and his decision to go to America, he hadn’t played a tournament for almost a year.
“I was just afraid to go out (of the country)," he reflects. "Because once I go out, I can't come back.
“So like 2022, I decided to go America to play some tournaments. Before that, I didn't play tournaments for almost one year. I did practice, but I didn't play tournaments for almost one year."
It was a strange limbo for someone whose rise had been so fast.
He suddenly had no arena to grow into, and it came after he’d had his confidence knocked through a missed cut in an amateur event.
When he finally left China in 2022, stepping onto the first tee of a U.S. Open qualifier, he was shaking — not from nerves, but from uncertainty.
“I was shaking on the tee box,” he says. “Because I didn’t play golf for a very long time.”
He needn’t have been so worried. The same year, he won the U.S. Junior Amateur, making history as the first player from China to win on that stage. It finally gave him a new confidence in his ability to win outside of his home country.
“Before I played the US junior, I don't feel I can win,” he says. “I had no confidence. Because, like, before that I played two amateur tournaments. One I missed a cut, one I got like 30th or 40th something.
“I would say that win was a turning point for my whole life.”
From there, Ding went to Arizona State University (ASU), choosing classrooms, teammates and a slower pace of growth over the fast track into professional golf.
“It's just a feeling, like I felt my game was not good enough to compete with a Tour player, and I should have some more times to do some practice," he says. "So that's why I went to college.
“I was doing the business communication. I was trying to learn because my English was not really good at that time, and everything was a little bit hard for me in school. But I enjoyed it.”
He kept winning. The Amer Ari Invitational, the Southern Amateur, the AsiaPacific Amateur in 2024 (after losing in a play-off in 2023), earning Pac-12 Conference Freshman of the Year and Player of the Year in 2024 accolades as he climbed to No. 3 in the world amateur rankings.
Then an opportunity came knocking he couldn’t ignore. The newly formed Global Amateur Pathway (GAP) arrived - created by the DP World Tour, PGA TOUR and The R&A to give elite amateurs a direct route into the professional game — and he found himself as the front-runner.
Suddenly, he had a big decision to make. Taking it up gave him a pathway to an unexpected and early guaranteed DP World Tour card that might not exist if he stayed at college, but it would mean leaving ASU after one year and forfeiting his Masters and U.S. Open exemptions.
“After you graduate, you have to be like top five to get the Korn Ferry Tour card," he recalls of the decision process. "So that's... you can't say something for the next three years, but right now you're guaranteed to have a card.
“It was hard for the Masters, but if I wait another half year, I’ll probably lose my card. So I was talking with my coach, with my friends, and I feel if I don't take it, I'll regret it. So I took the card and turned pro last year.”
It didn't take him long to impress and prove to himself he was ready. A fortnight after his Asia-Pacific Amateur success he turned professional and made his pro debut on the HotelPlanner Tour’s Hangzhou Open, finishing in a share of 11th.
The pathway gave him a full card on Tour at the age of 19, and while there was a lot of unfamiliarity, there were moments were his talent truly shone.
Following a missed cut in his first DP World Tour event at the BMW Australian PGA Championship, Ding then finished inside the top five on just his second start at the ISPS HANDA Australian Open, a small indicator of what is still to come.
His first year on Tour was a blur of airports, rental cars and unfamiliar cities. Every week was new. Every golf course was new. And every decision from flights, hotels, entries felt like a steep and fast learning curve, with documents in a language he still didn’t feel comfortable with.
“Last year it was like too much travel,” he says of what he learned. “Every country is my first time. I don’t know where I should go.
"After landing I had to rent a car. And my dad drives a car to the hotel and to a golf course. Every golf course is new.”
He played 27 events in his rookie season, crisscrossing 22 different countries in the process. There were weeks he flew across the world as first reserve and never got in, or faced uncertainty about playing.
“Abu Dhabi [HSBC Championship], I was the first reserve, but I didn’t get in,” he says of the opening DP World Tour Play-Off event. “But I flew there, waited for days. That was tough.”
And yet, through all of that, he produced a season that would have been impressive for any rookie, let alone one navigating a new language, new continents and a new life.
He finished 75th on the Race to Dubai Rankings, just falling short of qualifying for the DP World Tour Play-Offs. He posted two top-ten finishes, one in Australia and one in China. He made cuts, found momentum, and came out reflecting positively on his season.
“I think I did pretty well last year," he says. "I saw sometimes, I made a lot of cuts and I was improving. I think it was a good first year. And this year I'm just trying to be better. I got a good start.”
Only after all of that does the invisible weight of his year come into focus.
“It’s difficult because I have to speak a lot on the Tour because everyone speaks English,” he says.
“Especially if someone sends me some documents. There’s a lot of documents for employers, for hotels, for visas… especially the visa. It’s very hard.
“My caddy John is from Scotland. He's trying to speak slowly.”
He laughs when he says it, but it’s not a small thing. It’s an added layer of complexity that many rookies never have to think about.
And like so many of the challenges he’s already worked through, he doesn’t give himself enough credit for what he’s managed to overcome.
Thankfully, there was some familiarity and others willing to help.
“I would say everyone is really kind to me. I have some friends here, especially Ryggs and my teammate, Josele Ballester and David Puig. Me and Josele, we're teammates in college. And David, he graduated, but went to the same college.”
He now appears to have a quiet confidence, and a sense of belonging, which is one of the many lessons he learned along the way.
He changed his iron shafts and saw immediate improvement, and made small adjustments to his swing. He learned to play on different grasses.
“My long shots were much better,” he says. “And for the short game, I play a lot of golf courses, a lot of grasses, so it’s helped me a lot.”
The runner-up finish that opened this season in Brisbane — the same event where he missed the cut in his first DP World Tour start as a professional — felt like a quiet confirmation of it all.
“I felt a little bit nervous because it’s a new season, you have to start from zero points," he says. "So you have to get some points step by step. So like a first, solo second helps a lot for the new season.
“It gave me some confidence that if I play good, I can win,” he says. “Last year I always feel like a little bit outside from the winning circle. This year, my game was much better.”
As a result, his goals for this year are simple, but not small.
“First of all, I just want to be top 15 for the season,” he says. “And the biggest goal for me is trying to play the PGA TOUR. That’s everyone’s dream.”
For now, though, he is here — at his first Rolex Series event, looking around at the grandstands, the crowds, the scale of it all, and smiling.
“The facility is different,” he says. “The building is much more than normal events. And I can see more audience and more good golfers like Rory and Shane Lowry.”
He says it with the same quiet tone he uses for everything, but it’s clear he is delighted to be here. And that he belongs here. He knows it now.
And it won’t be long until he proves it to the rest of the world.
