Lee heads NZ Eisenhower chances
BY Anthony Powter | Amateur Golf Tour | 2008 World Amateur Team Championships | General | 15 Oct 2008
Danny Lee has returned to Adelaide with the New Zealand Eisenhower team after an extended period in the US and is eager to compete in his first World Amateur Championship.
The 18-year-old is coming off a standout season in the US after securing five top-10 finishes in major amateur tournaments from six starts plus overtaking the world’s top ranked position from American Rickie Fowler, who is also in Adelaide this week, after winning the Western Amateur.
Lee then went on to make the cut at the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship the week before he became the youngest ever winner of the US Amateur at Pinehurst County Club.
The 18-year-old has plenty of positive memories of Adelaide.
Earlier this year he withstood a late charge by Matthew Griffin to progress to the semi-finals of the Australian Amateur at Royal Adelaide Golf Club in a display of aggressive golf against one of Australia’s in-form players.
“Royal Adelaide is a course that suits my game, but The Grange gives you a lot of opportunities as well,” said Lee this afternoon.
“They’re both great courses and the scoring should be low as the greens are true.”
“I’m looking forward to playing for New Zealand in a team competition,” said Lee. “It does not matter if one player in the team has a bad round, as the other two scores count. That makes for an exciting style of golf,” said Lee.
The world number one was in a relaxed mood following this morning’s practice round, enjoying the hype that surrounds an event where players from the four corners of the globe descended upon Adelaide to compete.
James Gill and Jared Pender will team up with Lee in a New Zealand team that should be highly competitive in this championship.
In the fifty-year history of the World Amateur Teams Championship, New Zealand has won just one title when Michael Campbell, Grant Moorehead, Steven Scahill and Phil Tataurangi defeated the USA in 1992 and been runner up on two occasions.
