Four Aussies tee it up at Western Am
BY Anthony Powter | US Mens Amateur Tour | 2009 Western Amateur Championship | Preview | 04 Aug 2009
Luke Bleumink, Tarquin MacManus, Ryan McCarthy and Jason Scrivener will be the only Australians teeing up this week for one of the top US amateur events this season, The Western Amateur, being played at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest just north of Chicago.
A field of 156 of the best amateur golfers from the United States and around the world are striving for The Western Amateur, one of the most sought after amateur titles and considered by many as being the second most prestigious amateur title in the US, only behind that of the US Amateur Championship.
It is then disappointing that administrators back in Australia have instead elected to send the likes of Matt Jager, Daniel Nisbet, Matt Giles, Daniel Beckmann, Brendan Smith and Jordan Sherratt to Canada for the Four Nations Cup, a bi-annual team event. The missed opportunity to play against easily the strongest amateur field assembled this season here in the US in a championship format that will produce a true champion, represents a priceless loss.
This year’s Western Amateur format includes two, 18-hole stroke play rounds on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by a cut for the low 44 scores and ties. The players then play 36 holes of stroke play on Thursday, with the low 16 advancing to match play segment of the championship on Friday. The winner will be determined following elimination match play which concludes on Saturday.
Among the tournament favourites are 2008 Western Amateur runner-up Erik Flores and four players ranked among the top-7 of US Amateurs, Zack Sucher, Morgan Hoffman, Mike Van Sickle and Cameron Tringale. Top internationals also include France’s Victor Dubuisson, who took Matt Jager to the wire at the 2008 Federal Amateur, Judson Eustaquio from the Philippines and Korea’s Sihwan Kim.
One look at the list of previous winners of the Western Amateur confirms the tournament’s standing on the world amateur stage. Jack Nicklaus (1961), Ben Crenshaw (1973), Curtis Strange (1974), Hal Sutton (1979-80), Chris DiMarco (1988), Phil Mickelson (1991), Justin Leonard (1992-93) and Tiger Woods (1994) are all former winners at the Western.
Australian Bronson LaCassie won the title in 2006 in what he later described as one of his major achievements as an amateur, before he joined the professional ranks.
