Some of the world’s finest men’s amateur golfers are gathered in Antalya, Turkey for the World Amateur Team Championship which starts today.
Thirty-six of the top 100 players in the World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR) will compete for the Eisenhower Trophy at the Cornelia Golf Club and Antalya Golf Club (PGA Sultan Course) from today until Sunday, October 7.
Following on from the Republic of Korea’s successful defence of the Espirito Santo Trophy in the women’s event at the weekend, the French men’s team will be looking to retain the title their compatriots won at Buenos Aires Golf Club in 2010. The French team, comprising Johann Lopez-Lazaro, Alexander Levy and Romain Wattel, finished four shots ahead of Denmark and five ahead of the USA.
Chris Williams, the recent recipient of the Mark H McCormack Medal as the leading player in the 2012 WAGR ranking, heads the field which includes four of his fellow top ten ranked players.
Williams is joined by the Lytham Trophy and St Andrews Links Trophy champion, Daan Huizing, from the Netherlands, Justin Thomas, the world number three from the USA, Frenchman Julien Brun, who won the recent Allianz Golf Open Toulouse Metropole on the European Challenge Tour and the ninth-ranked player Robert Karlsson from Sweden.
The final player on a strong American team is the US Amateur Champion Steven Fox. The Amateur Champion Alan Dunbar will be a key part of the Irish team and the two-time Asian Amateur Champion Hideki Matsuyama will lead Japan’s challenge.
A field of 72 teams are competing in the 28th staging of the championship, surpassing the previous record of 70 in South Africa in 2006. Six countries are making their first appearances: Macedonia, Kyrgystan, Malta, Oman, Poland and Ukraine.
Each team consists of two or three players who play 18 holes of stroke play. The team score is taken from the two lowest scores from each team in each round.
The inaugural World Amateur Team Championship was played in 1958 at the Old Course in St Andrews. The idea for the event grew out of a number of requests being made for the USA to play team matches against other countries. The USGA and The R&A came together to establish the championship and agreed to play the first event in St Andrews. The trophy was named after President Dwight D Eisenhower.
It is now staged by the International Golf Federation which comprises the governing bodies of golf in 126 countries and the international professional tours.
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