Sadbhav “Sam” Acharya grew up playing golf at a course perched 4,600 feet above sea level in Kathmandu, Nepal, a city famous for being the gateway to the Himalayas. But his game reached new heights when a lesson from Nick Faldo a year ago contributed to a victory that helped the 20-year-old become the first amateur from his country to play Division I college golf.
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In 2021, at age 16, Acharya became the youngest golfer to win a Surya Nepal Golf Tour event before he claimed consecutive Faldo Junior Tour Nepal Championships. That led to a spot in last year’s Faldo Junior Tour European Grand Final in Dubai, where he met the six-time major winner from England.
Acharya is back in the Middle East this week, competing in the Asia-Pacific Amateur, a championship run jointly by Augusta National and the R&A. The winner earns an invitation to the 2026 Masters and spot in the field at the 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.
“Coming to Dubai is really special for me because I had my first international win here,” Acharya said Wednesday at the Emirates Golf Club, recalling how a few days prior to the event he was listening to Faldo run a clinic. “He taught us about the grip, how amateurs just want to hit it far, but he said hitting it straight was more important. That helped a lot, because I wasn’t trying to go after every shot. I took like five yards off [each shot], an extra club, to make sure I was in position. I came second overall and won the under-21s category.”
Thanks to that, Acharya came on the radar of several U.S. colleges. Last March, he accepted coach Matt Wernecke’s offer to play at Texas-San Antonio, enrolling at the end of the summer. “Being the first Nepalese golfer to play Division I golf in America is just an awesome feeling. Kids back home constantly text me saying, ‘How’s the experience?’”
When he first teed it up at TPC San Antonio this fall, Acharya had to get used to playing golf some 4,000 feet lower in altitude, adjusting for the decrease in distance off the tee. Tour pros estimate at several thousand feet, the golf ball can fly up to 20 percent farther. “The altitude, the ball flight, the distances were a big change for me,” he said
He also couldn’t believe how popular golf was in Texas. “Everywhere you step, there is a golf course,” he said. Nepal has a total of seven courses, of which the first to be built, Royal Nepal GC, was designed by his grandfather, Shambhu Acharya. Acharya’s father, Deepak, was a tour pro and the first golfer from Nepal to play an Asian Tour event when he teed up at Delhi Golf Club at the 2003 Indian Open.
“I was really fortunate to play at [Gokarna Forest Resort in the Kathmandu woods] because my dad is the manager of the club and he’s also the general secretary of the Nepal Golf Association,” Acharya said.
The facilities in San Antonio, and the exposure to top college coaching and competition, has elevated Acharya’s game to the point he feels more assured at this year’s Asia-Pacific Amateur. This will be his fourth start in the event, having missed the cut in his three previous appearances. Earlier this year, Acharya won the Nepal Amateur Open and the Bangladesh Amateur Championship.
“TPC [San Antonio] as our home course is a real advantage for us,” he said. “I would say I’m confident for this week, but I just want to keep my nerves cool. I don’t want to get too excited or overwhelmed, so I’ll keep my head down and work hard.”
It’s hard not to get excited when starts at the Masters and Open Championship are on the line. Especially knowing what it would do for golf in Nepal to have its first ever competitor in the Masters. In 2021, Nepal’s Jaivir Pande made headlines in the country when he competed in the Drive, Chip and Putt finals at Augusta National.
“[Golf] is definitely growing, and we’ve got a couple of juniors lined up to become better amateur players,” Acharya said. “It’s just a sport many people in Nepal don’t know about. We need to tell them this is a sport that has the potential to become really good in the future.”
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