- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Australian golfers believe home ground advantage can help them usurp fancied rivals in the men’s world amateur teams championship starting in Adelaide tomorrow.
Australians Matt Griffin, Tim Stewart and Rohan Blizzard will be competing against teams from 67 other nations including the powerful United States outfit and a New Zealand team headed by world No.1 amateur Danny Lee.
Lee in August erased one of Tiger Woods’ many records by becoming the youngest winner of the US Amateur Championship – he was 18 years and 32 days old when victorious, almost seven months younger than Woods when he claimed the first of his three titles in 1994.
The US boasts three golfers ranked in the top six in the world – Rickie Fowler, Billy Horschel and Jamie Lovemark – and have won the Eisenhower Trophy, the coveted prize for the winning team, at three of the last four biennial tournaments.
The Australians are trying to win the title for a third time having last been successful 12 years ago.
“You always anticipate something to happen from the United States,” Australian captain Stuart Cox said today.
“New Zealand has the No.1 amateur, the Netherlands won last time … there are so many good players but we are as good a chance as anybody.
“We haven’t necessarily set ourselves any goals, what we are doing is concentrating on trying to get away to a good start tomorrow and then take it day by day.
“If the team plays to their potential, we should be there at the finish.”
The tournament will be played simultaneously at two courses in Adelaide’s west – Royal Adelaide and Grange.
Each nation has two or three golfers play four rounds on consecutive days, with the total of the two lowest scorers being the team’s daily score.
Cox said hosting the tournament, and the associated extra attention, was an advantage for the Australians.
“The boys have been pretty good on just focussing on their preparation and making the home ground advantage work for us,” Cox said.
“This event is really the pinnacle of amateur golf as far as teams are concerned.
“From an individual point of view they have worked very hard to get here and are quite humbled by the opportunity, particularly to play at home.
“In their case it’s their last significant tournament as an amateur so they want to go out on a high note.”