Who is Sami Valimaki? All you need to know about the 2023 Qatar Masters’ Finnish champion

Sami Valimaki won the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters on Sunday after defeating Jorge Campillo in a playoff. This is his second career victory on the DP World Tour and comes three years after his first.

Valimaki, 25, hails from Nokia, Finland. He got his start in golf at his hometown course, Nokia River Golf, where he is still a member.

Valimaki is an example of a player with a successful amateur golf career who did not play on the U.S. collegiate circuit. In this category, he won four tournaments, including the Ticino Championship (2016 and 2017) twice.

He also won the 2016 Finnish Junior Match Play Under-18 and the 2017 Portuguese International Amateur Championship.

To cap off his amateur career, Sami Valimaki was part of the Finnish team that surprisingly won the European Amateur Team Championship.

It was a historic comeback for the Finns, who qualified for the quarterfinals by just one stroke. From there, Team Finland, led by Valimaki, got a second wind. They defeated Ludvig Aberg's Sweden, Hurly Long's Germany and Matthew Jordan's England in a row to win the title.

Valimaki also simultaneously finished his military service in his country and, at the end of this period, he started his professional career.

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Sami Valimaki's professional career

The start of Sami Valimaki's professional career was in 2019, and his debut in this category took place on the Pro Golf Tour, a third-tier circuit based in Germany.

Valimaki didn't have to wait long to excel at this level. Within weeks, he won his first tournament on the circuit, marking his first professional victory, and went on to win three more events over the course of the season.

Sami Valimaki (Image via Getty).

The Finn participated in the 2019 DP World Tour Q-School and earned his membership for the 2020 season.

In his debut season at the highest level in Europe, Sami Valimaki continued the upward trajectory of his career. He needed just six starts to win his first tournament at this level, the 2020 Oman Open.

Valmiaki finished the season on a high with six more top 10s and 14 cuts in 19 events. He went on to woin the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Award, becoming the first Finn to do so.

However, the next two seasons were not the same as he played 46 tournaments between 2021 and 2022, recording only one top 10 finish and 23 missed cuts.

In 2023, Valimaki regained his mojo and has recorded 20 cuts made in 27 tournaments, with five top 10s in addition to the victory obtained this Sunday. His two victories on the DP World Tour have notably come in tournaments held in the Arabian Peninsula.