USA set for Eisenhower showdown
BY Anthony Powter | Amateur Golf Tour | 2008 World Amateur Team Championships | General | 15 Oct 2008
Between them they dominate the world rankings with all three inside the world’s top six amateurs.
Rickie Fowler (2), Billy Horschel (4) and Jamie Lovemark (6) were members of the victorious 2007 Walker Cup Team. They arrived this morning at The Grange Golf Club, one of the two venues for the Championship, quietly confident of their chances this week.
USA Team Audio Interview
“We have a strong and good team here this week and should perform well,” said Rickie Fowler.
The USA has prevailed in 13 of the 24 World Amateur Team Championships to have the highest winning margin of the 68 teams competing in Adelaide this week. Great Britain & Ireland has won four times, followed by Australia who has three championships to its credit.
“We don’t worry about the past and what other teams from the USA have done,” says Fowler.
“That’s not necessary as we come here with a strong team that’s playing well and we will just focus upon getting the results this week. That’s what we are here for.”
With a long and proud history in this Championship, each member of Team USA wears their pride on their sleeve. Former USA Eisenhower representatives include some of golf’s top names including Jack Nicklaus, Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Hal Sutton, David Duval, Justin Leonard and Tiger Woods.
“It’s an honour to be here and playing,” says Billy Horschel, with has five top-10 finishes this season in the US, including a 3rd place at the Northeast Amateur.
“You just need to look at the history of our team to realise the importance placed on this event. It promises to be a great week of golf and these courses are not easy, especially when this wind picks up like it did this afternoon.”
The layouts at both The Grange and Royal Adelaide, the two venues for the Championship are to the USA’s liking.
“Royal Adelaide is probably the harder of the two in my mind,” says Jamie Lovemark.
“They are both great courses each with their own individual differences, but when the wind blows, I do not think it’s going to be too easy out there. If you miss a lot of the greens on the wrong side, you are going to rack up a number, that’s for sure.”
Each team member’s resume is the envy of most in the field, littered with US collegiate and major international amateur achievements.
Fowler, 19, is a two-time winner of the Sunnehanna Amateur and the 2007 Players Amateur champion. The Oklahoma State University sophomore made the cut at this year’s US Open at Torrey Pines and was the recipient of the Phil Mickelson Award, as the top US collegiate freshman in 2007.
Lovemark won the 2008 North & South medal and then finished runner-up in the championship proper. He made the cut at the PGA Tour’s Buick Invitational and played strongly at the 2007 Walker Cup, where he won three of his single matches.
Horschel is a relative late bloomer to the world amateur ranks. In 2006 the Florida native sprung onto the US amateur scene with a USGA record 11-under-par 60 on the first day of stroke play at the 2006 US Amateur. The 21-year-old is well known in the US for his aggressive “never say die” approach to his game.
At last year’s Walker Cup, Horschel and Rickie Fowler were sent out in the first foursomes match on Sunday morning against Great Britain and Ireland with the match tied at 6 and 6. The pair went on to record a 2 and 1 victory that spurred the Americans on to a 10 and 6 victory on Irish soil.
Regarded as a confident player, Horschel will be the USA anchor man this week in Adelaide, eager and ready to jump into the breech at the business end of this Championship.
The USA start as favourites in Adelaide tomorrow, having won three of the last four championships. They finished in third place behind the Netherlands and Canada when the Eisenhower Trophy was played in 2006 in South Africa.
It is a team packed full of talent and it’s going to take some effort to release their stranglehold on this Championship.
