Masters Set for Royal Melbourne!

Australian Mens Amateur Tour | 2011 Master of the Amateurs | Preview | 10 Jan 2011

The Australian Master of the Amateurs is set to get underway with a world class international field battling for supremacy on arguably Australia’s premier golf course, Royal Melbourne, venue for the Presidents Cup this November.

A total of 54 players from 11 countries will compete over four days of stroke play staring Tuesday with a field that includes many of the world’s best.

Jin Jeong is the highest ranked player competing with the world number 4 and 2010 British Amateur Champion keen to add to his 2010 wins at the Riversdale Cup and Tasmanian Open.

England’s Tom Lewis is the next highest ranked player at number 5.

Lewis was the leading amateur at the Australian Open last December at The Lakes and pushed Peter O’Malley to the wire at the NSW Open with O’Malley winning the title on the third play-off hole. The English Boy’s champion and 2010 Eisenhower representative, is one of my hot favourites to take out this tournament.

Royal Melbourne is not overly long by modern standards, yet is punishing for any errant approach shots.

Lewis is a majestical driver of the ball and this will serve him an advantage with having the ability to attack the Royal Melbourne’s daunting greens with high approach shots through the use of the shorter irons. Provided the Englishman is able to keep his ball on the short stuff, Lewis will be a real change to take this title out.

Australian Ryan McCarthy is another capable of winning this event.

McCarthy has been based playing his golf with Victoria Golf Club just around the corner of Royal Melbourne and knows what’s required to win on the sand belt layouts, which themselves present their own unique challenges.

McCarthy was top-amateur last week at the Victorian Open and brings some stellar form into the tournament. His experience in making the top-16 at the US Amateur Championship at Chambers Bay last August, combined with a strong work ethic, will make the world number 19 hard to beat this week.

American David McDaniel from Tucson, Arizona, spearheads the American challenge.

McDaniel is ranked in the world’s top 10 amateurs, was runner-up in the prestigious 2010 US Public Links championship and in 2010 won the Arizona Public Links title.

Harry Rudolph III, Jordan Russell and Bhavik Patel rounds out the US combination for the tournament. Rudolph III’s name was also alongside, David Duval, Justin Leonard and Mickelson as recipients of all-American college first team honours in 1992. At 40, having regained his amateur status in 2009, he’s back playing main amateur golf, finishing runner-up in the California State Amateur and posting the best score at a local US Open qualifying event.

US-based Queenslander Tarquin MacManus brings to Royal Melbourne a game that has been shaped under the tough US Collegiate system at the University of Arizona. McManus was runner-up at the 2010 Asian Amateur Championship and the year earlier had a 3rd place finish at the prestigious Southern Amateur.

MacManus is due for a major amateur title and will be a player to closely follow as the tournament unfolds.

Tim Hart is another Australian to keep an eye on as well.

Hart has been close to winning a main amateur title before both at the 2009 Federal Amateur, the Victorian match play amateur and the Queensland amateur. Should the Queenslander be in the mix during Friday’s final round, he’ll certainly be in with a chance to collect that maiden amateur title that he richly deserves.

Italian teenager Domenico Geminiani might be only 14 but already he’s being tipped to follow the path of fellow-countryman, Matteo Manassero, who became the European Tour’s youngest winner capturing the Castello Masters title back in October a 17 years and 188 days, to beat Danny Lee’s efforts when he triumphed at the Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth in February 2009 as an 18 year-old.

Geminiani has already two top-10 finishes in main amateur events this year with a tied 8th at the St Augustine Amateur in Florida and a tied 3rd finish at the Cervia City Open in his homeland in Italy. A massive driver of the ball, the Italian should perform well this week in Melbourne.

Another to closely follow is New Zealand’s Ben Campbell.

Campbell, 19, became the first Kiwi to make the top 20 in the world amateur rankings since Danny Lee in 2008 and has considerable experience in playing the bigger events. Campbell was leading amateur in the 2009 Australian Open, secured a runner-up finish to Australian Matt Jager in the 2010 Australian Amateur championship and had an impressive victory on the New Zealand Tour with the 2010 Tauranga Open, in which he shot a final round of 66.

To the victor following the four round stroke format go the spoils, with starts at the British Amateur, Porter Cup, the Players Amateur, the Dogwood Invitational and the Canadian Men’s Amateur.

Previous Master of the Amateurs winners including Brendan Jones (1999), Ben Meyers (2002), Andrew Tampion, (2004) Ashley Hall (2005) and Jason Day (2006).

Last year Jordan Sherratt won the title on the first play-off hole from American, Bud Cauley, to secure his biggest amateur win in his career. The previous year American Mark Anderson held off a determined Rickie Fowler to win in another play-off at Yarra Yarra.