Can Australia win the Eisenhower Trophy?

BY Anthony Powter | Amateur Golf Tour | 2008 World Amateur Team Championships | Preview | 13 Oct 2008

Australia’s Eisenhower team for the World Amateur Teams Championships, which starts this Thursday in Adelaide includes Matt Griffin, Tim Stewart and Rohan Blizard. It’s an experienced outfit compared to previous years with the world number five, Matt Griffin arguably the in-form player of team.

Australia won the inaugural Championship on the Old Course of St Andrews in October, 1958 in a playoff with the USA. Eight years later in 1966 the title again fell to the Australian team. In the fifty-year history of the biannual Championship, Australia has won three championships and been runner up on four occasions.

Australian Eisenhower Team Audio Interview

Only the US with thirteen and the combined Great Britain and Ireland team with four wins have better Eisenhower Trophy records than Australia.

What then separates the Australian team from the rest this week in Adelaide and will it be enough to see victory fall to Australia team as they seek to repeat the efforts of Brett Partridge, Jarrod Moseley, Jamie Crow and David Gleeson, who twelve years ago in 1996, won Australia’s third Eisenhower Trophy in the Philippines?

One aspect of the Aussie team that sets them apart from the others is the depth of international experience that Griffin, Blizard and Stewart have ammased over the past year or two.

This year alone, Griffin has secured three major amateur titles with the Rice Planters Invitational in the US and two National Trial events at the Mandurah Easter Amateur and Keperra Bowl back home in Australia. Add to this six top-ten finishes in major international amateur events from just nine starts, including a runner-up finish at the Lake Macquarie Amateur.

Griffin’s sheer consistency in the bigger events over the last two years is sure to be a major asset for the Australian team this week in Adelaide.

Another important element with team events is the level of mateship and support and the Australians are clearly a tight knit bunch.

“We’ve played a lot of tournaments all around the world together and will certainly play off and support each other,” said Griffin back in September at the Interstate series in Sydney.

“We probably have one of the strongest bonds, if not the strongest bond between us, more than any other team in the championship,” were Tim Stewart’s remarks.

At 23, Stewart is the youngest of the team yet arguably the most experienced having played the world’s top amateur events for the last three years in the US, UK and Asia, as well as representative duties in South America.

Stewart was the winner of the 2006 Australian Amateur and the 2007 Singapore Open Amateur and has won numerous National Trial events over the last two years, including the Tasmanian Open and Riversdale Cup.

In 2006 Stewart finished runner-up twice in the US, at the Rice Planters Championship and the Eastern Amateur, and in 2007 was only one of three Australians ever to play in the final of the British Amateur Championship.

Stewart is regarded as a steely competitor but also a team player who is capable of lifting all those around him to perform better.

“Tim is just a great motivator for any team,” says Rohan Blizard. “He’s the perfect team player and it’s great to know he’ll be there giving it 110% all the time.”

Blizard back in July qualified for The Open Championship at Royal Brikdale and has lately focused playing in Europe, where he plans to play professionally. Ranked 8th in the world, the 24-year-old won the East of Scotland championship in June and in 2007 was the Australian Amateur champion.

Blizard packs a superb short game, which will be essential around the Royal Adelaide where most of the greens are elevated and require deathly precision with any approach shot so as to hold the green.

Arguably Australia’s biggest threat will come from the US which includes three players inside the world top 6, namely, Rickie Fowler (2), Billy Horschel (4) and Jamie Lovemark (6). All were members of the victorious US 2007 Walker Cup Team.

According to the international media the US start 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 another strong team, including Reiner Saxton the 2008 British Amateur champion and world number 39. Whilst still remaining a relative “unknown” quantity, they should not be underestimated. Neither should the Korean team, who in 1996 finished 5th.

The English team comprises one of youth with 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 New Zealanders, winners in 1992, is another team that should also challenge the field this week. World number 1 and US Amateur Champion Danny Lee, spearheads the Kiwis along with James Gill who has played regularly in Australia over the last two years and knows the Royal Adelaide and Grange layouts well. Jared Pender and Nick Gillespie are the remaining New Zealand representatives.

Australia’s best performances in recent years are two third place finishes in 2000 and 2003, while in 2006, the Australian team of Won Joon Lee, Andrew Tampion and Stephen Dartnall finished in a rather disappointing T12 position.

In Adelaide the Australians should fare better than in 2006 and you would hope so.

Royal Adelaide and the Grange Golf Club’s West and East Courses require mature players with solid course management skills. This the Australian team has as Griffin, Stewart and Blizard are all extremely good course managers.

Course management qualities, combined with unity and experience of the team, sees one of the strongest Australian teams in the World Amateur Teams Championship for many years.

There’s no question surrounding the depth of talent of all the other major teams competing in this Championship. The US, England, the Netherlands and other golfing power nations are extremely competitive and capable of winning.

Yet it’s the Australians with their combined level of international experience which sets them apart and there is usually no substitute for experience, especially when competing at the highest level of any sport.