US favourites for Eisenhower Trophy
BY Anthony Powter | Amateur Golf Tour | 2008 World Amateur Team Championships | Preview | 11 Oct 2008
The World Amateur Team Championship began in 1958 from a suggestion that the USGA received regarding a team match between the USA and Japan in 1957. Further consideration by USGA officials at the time grew the idea of forming a team competition that would bring together the best players of all countries.
The Royal & Ancient Golf Club joined in implementing the idea and with US President Dwight D Eisenhower consenting to the naming of the championship prize as the Eisenhower Trophy, the championship was inaugurated in 1958 and has been synonymous with the best of amateur golf ever since.
Eisenhower Trophy winners who have gone on to win major championships include Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Curtis, Bob Tway, Hal Sutton, Ben Crenshaw, Curtis Strange, Jerry Pate and New Zealand’s Michael Campbell. Countless PGA Tour players are also former competitors in the three-man biannual team based competition.
The championship format includes a team of three players who play 18 holes of stroke play over four days. In each round, the total of the two lowest scores from each team constitutes the team score for the round. The four day (72-hole) total is the team’s score for the championship and determines the championship winner.
The first championship was played on the Old Course of St Andrews in October, 1958, and 115 players representing 29 countries played. Australia won in a playoff with the USA.
This year 72 countries will contest for the title starting this Thursday at The Grange and Royal Adelaide Golf Club in South Australia. Only Australia and the USA have hosted the event more than once.
The US has prevailed in 13 of the 24 competitions and Great Britain & Ireland has won four times, while Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Sweden have each captured the Eisenhower Trophy. Australia has won the title three times (1958,1966 & 1996) and been runner up on four occasions.
Australia’s best performances over recent years have been two 3rd place finishes in 2000 and 2003, while on the last occasion the Eisenhower Trophy was played in 2006, the Australian team of Won Joon Lee, Andrew Tampion and Stephen Dartnall finished in a rather disappointing T12 position.
Australia’s Eisenhower team for these championships includes Matt Griffin, Tim Stewart and Rohan Blizard. It’s an experienced outfit compared to previous years with the world number five, Matt Griffin the in-form player of the team. In July, Blizard qualified for The Open Championship, whilst Stewart, winner of the 2006 Australian Amateur and 2007 Singapore Open Amateur, is a seasoned international player.
The US team includes three players inside the world top six, including Rickie Fowler (2), Billy Horschel (4) and Jamie Lovemark (6). All were members of the victorious US 2007 Walker Cup Team and the US will start as favourites in Adelaide, having won four of the last three championships and with a third in 2006 when the Eisenhower Trophy was last played in South Africa.
Defending champions the Netherlands have fielded another strong team, including Reiner Saxton the 2008 British Amateur champion and world number 39. The English team comprises of Luke Goddard, Sam Hutsby and Dale Whitnell all aged under 21 and they will aim to give England its first victory since the combined Great Britain and Ireland team won in Chile in 1998.
The Aussies should do well in Adelaide and will be looking to repeat the efforts of Brett Partridge, Jarrod Moseley, Jamie Crow and David Gleeson, who twelve years ago won the Eisenhower Trophy for Australia in the Philippines.
Playing on home turf, expectations will be high on the Aussies, yet this year at the Australian Amateur at Royal Adelaide it was Anders Kristiansen from Norway that collected the trophy and became the first continental European to do so.
Expect New Zealand’s Danny Lee to be a star performer this week. The world number one is coming off a sensational US season having won the the medal and match play at the Western Amateur, a T20th place at the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship and capped off his US tour with winning the US Amateur.
It sets the stage for a sizzling week of golf in Adelaide and as for the winning nation in the 50th anniversary of the championship?
Well that could come from anywhere but you would have to favour the US, simply on recent performances and the sheer strength and depth of their team.
