Pratt one to watch at Riversdale
BY Anthony Powter | Australian Mens Amateur Tour | 2010 Riversdale Cup | Preview | 04 Mar 2010
Kieran Pratt knows what it takes to win a main amateur event. With four wins this season, including The Dunes Medal and the peerless display he exhibited at the Lake Macquarie Amateur with an eleven stroke demolishing of the field, Pratt clearly starts as one of the favourites for this week’s Riversdale Cup.
Defending Champion and recent winner of the NEC Master of the Amateurs, Jordan Sherratt, is another that could rain on Pratt’s parade of wins. Sherratt last year cruised to his first National Trial event title with a 21-under-par total, five shots from nearest rival, Scott Arnold.
Arnold has since turned professional, Sherratt has gone from strength to strength, no more shown than with his victory on the first play-off hole against American Bad Cauley, at the NEC Masters of the Amateur in January at Yarra Yarra.
This week’s field includes the cream of main Australian Amateurs.
World number 7, Matt Jager, will be in search of his first win of the season, having defended his title at the Federal Amateur last October. Jager followed that with two top-5 finishes in three National Trial events at the beginning of the season and made the cut at the New Zealand Open in January, after receiving an invite through his 2009 New Zealand Amateur win, finishing the co-sanctioned Nationwide Tour event in Arrowtown in a tie for 23rd position.
Jason Scrivener, winner of The Australian Cup back in January, is another capable of winning at Riversdale. Scrivener thinks his way around a course and that is one attribute a player needs on the shorter Riversdale layout. which is heavily treelined and includes a number of short, but testing, par 4 dog-legs.
Whilst in recent years Ryan McCarthy has not enjoyed the Riversdale layout like he would had liked, the 2009 Tasmanian Open champion has not tasted success for a while and comes into this tournament with two top-10 finishes at the NEC Master of the Amateurs and at the Lake Macquaire Amateur. McCarthy is a fighter and is primed for another victory on home soil after a period of prolong injuries with his wrist that has frustrated the talented Tasmanian of late.
Jin Jeong is another player to follow this week having strongly contested during the opening rounds of the NEC Master of the Amateurs and with the Victorian based South Korean coming off a win last month at the Tasmanian Open.
Keep an eye out also for Matthew Steiger who qualified for the Australian Open last December and has featured strongly in recent main amateur events. Michael Williams, who is from the same Sydney Club as Steiger at St Michael’s Golf Club, recently won the NSW Amateur Stroke Championship and is another emerging talent forging their way onto the main Australian amateur scene.
The Riversdale Cup is not only steeped in history, being Australia’s second oldest amateur championship (the first tournament was contested two years after the Australian Amateur was first played in 1894), but recent winners include the likes of Robert Allenby (1990-91), Brendan Jones (1998), Aaron Baddeley (1999), Michael Sim (2004), Tim Stewart (2007) and Scott Arnold (2008). All of whom now play the professional ranks.
Following Sunday’s third round the cut will fall on the top 60 leading players, plus ties, for the final round on Monday.
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