Hensby, Lonard to team up for World Cup

BY iseekgolf.com | European PGA Tour | 2005 World Cup | General | 04 Oct 2005

Presidents Cup team-mates Peter Lonard and Mark Hensby hope to break a sixteen year drought when they represent Australia at the World Golf Championships Algarve World Cup in Portugal at the Victoria Clube de Golfe, Vilamoura, next month from November 17-20.

Hensby, the current world number 27 and winner of the Scandinavian Masters on the European Tour this year, selected current world number 40 Lonard, as his choice for partner at this year’s event. The duo hope to emulate the success of fellow Aussies Wayne Grady and Peter Fowler who won in 1989, the last time Australia was victorious.

Lonard, a multiple winner on Australian soil and first time US PGA TOUR winner in 2005 has surprisingly never represented Australia at the World Cup, an ambition he has held for some time now.

“The World Cup is something I have always aspired to,” said the current Australian Open and Cadbury Schweppes Australian PGA Champion. “I never had the opportunity to represent Australia as an amateur golfer and this is something I have wanted to do for a few years now.”

“I’m really looking forward to playing with Mark, neither of us has played in a World Cup before but we made a pretty good team at the Presidents Cup so hopefully we can take that camaraderie with us and carry it over to the World Cup.”

The last time Australia won the World Cup was in 1989, before it became a World Golf Championship sanctioned event, when Queenslander Wayne Grady and New South Welshman Peter Fowler claimed victory for Australia for the fourth time in the history of the event. Grady and Fowler won in Marbella, Spain after the tournament was reduced to 36 holes due to torrential rains, forcing the final two rounds to be abandoned. Fowler also became the first Australian to win the individual trophy.

Prior to 1989, Australia had won the World Cup three times. The first was in 1954 when Peter Thomson and Kel Nagle held the cup aloft in just its second year of competition in Montreal, Canada. Five years later, the pair won again in Melbourne, Australia but it was another 11 years before Australia tasted success again, when David Graham and Bruce Devlin won in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The 2005 US$4 million event featuring two-man teams from 24 nations around the world will see the event played for the first time in Portugal. England are the defending champions, although their line-up will change. Last year, Luke Donald and Paul Casey earned the trophy, while this year Donald will be joined by David Howell, the 19th-ranked player in the world.

The following are the 19 exempt nations listed alphabetically:
Argentina (Angel Cabrera/Ricardo Gonzalez)
Australia (Mark Hensby/Peter Lonard)
Denmark (Anders Hansen/Soren Hansen)
England (Luke Donald/David Howell)
France (Thomas Levet/Raphael Jacquelin)
Germany (Alex Cejka/Marcel Siem)
Holland (Maarten Lafeber/Robert-Jan Derksen)
India (Jyoti Randhawa/Arjun Atwal)
Ireland (Padraig Harrington/Paul McGinley)
Japan (Yasuharo Imano/partner to be announced)
Paraguay (Carlos Franco/Marco Ruiz)
Portugal (Jose-Filipe Lima/Antonio Sobrinho)
Scotland (Stephen Gallacher/Scott Drummond)
South Africa (Tim Clark/Trevor Immelman)
South Korea (K.J. Choi/partner to be announced)
Spain (Sergio Garcia/Miguel Angel Jimenez)
Sweden (Henrik Stenson/Niclas Fasth)
United States (Stewart Cink/Zach Johnson)
Wales (Stephen Dodd/Bradley Dredge)

Players qualified for this year’s World Cup by virtue of their standings in the Official World Golf Ranking as of September 19. The highest ranked available players representing 18 countries automatically qualified for the event.

The final five teams will be determined this week at Nations Cup qualifiers in Mexico and Malaysia. The qualifier in Mexico will be held Oct. 5-8 at El Tigre Golf Club in Vallarta Nayarit. There are three spots available from the site.

Kota Permai Golf & Country Club in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia will host a qualifying tournament on Oct. 6-9 and will offer two spots.

The World Cup debuted in December 2000 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and was won by the United States team of Tiger Woods and David Duval.

A common qualification standard for the series is top players from the Official World Golf Ranking, which ensures a strong field.

Source – PGA Australia
Photo – Anthony Powter