Aussies set for Women's World Amateur
Amateur Golf Tour | 2010 World Amateur Team Championships | Preview | 20 Oct 2010
The World Amateur Team Championships gets underway tomorrow at Buenos Aires Golf Club and Olivos Golf Club in Argentina with a record total of 53 teams competing.
Australia is being represented by Julia Boland (New South Wales), Stacey Keating (Victoria) and Alison Whitaker (Victoria), with Boland competing in her second championship.
Hot favourites are the USA having won the event a record 13 times. Newly crowned US Women’s Amateur champion, Danielle Kang, will team with Cydney Clanton and Jessica Korda. The USA is a team hungry to add another title to the record a feat which has evaded the Americans since 1998, although USA were runners-up in 2004.
The European teams have also featured strongly in these championships in recent times, winning three of the last four titles.
Sweden is vying to become the first team to win back-to-back Espirito Santo Trophies since the USA won in 1988 and 1990. The Swedes are the only nation to finish in the top 10 in all 23 previous Women’s World Amateur Team Championships. Their sole returning player from the victory in 2008 in Australia is Caroline Hedwall, the 2010 NCAA Division I individual champion, playing for Oklahoma State University. Hedwall was also the low individual scorer in the 2008 Espirito Santo championship.
The youngest players in the field are 13 years old, Marijosse Navarro of Mexico, who just celebrated her birthday in September and Lydia Ko of New Zealand, who turned 13 in April. At 62, Beatriz de Arenas of Guatemala is the oldest of the competitors.
Australia has won the Espirito Santo Trophy twice with the last Australian women’s team to win the title back in 2002, where Katherine Hull, Lindsey Wright and Vicky Thomas (nee Uwland) defeated Thailand. In Adelaide in 2008, Australia finished well down the leader board in a tie for 15th.
The World Amateur Teams Championship is based on the best two scores from each team for 18 holes of stroke play for each day over for four days. The four-day (72-hole) total is the team’s score for the championship. A maximum of three players are in each team.
