Reigning Wilson Australian Amateur Champion Kurt Barnes will this week as favourite after his convincing win in the 2003 Riversdale Cup earlier this month. Barnes won the national amateur title last year at Brisbane's Indooroopilly Golf Club after outlasting Western Australian Michael Sim 2 and 1 in the final. The 2003 Wilson Australian Amateur Championship starts this Thursday at Perth's Mount Lawley Golf Club and Royal Perth Golf Club.

Whilst the 21 year-old Barnes, from Muswellbrook Golf Club in New South Wales, has experienced some inconsistent form since his win at Indooroopilly, his performance at Riversdale underlined his outstanding potential. Barnes returned sub-70 scores on all four days to ultimately post a new record low score off 22 under-par 266 for the 108 year-old event.

Last year's Wilson Australian Amateur runner-up, 18 year-old Western Australian Michael Sim, will also be difficult to beat. After his impressive display at Indooroopilly, Sim went on to win the 2002 WA Amateur and also go through the 2002 Interstate Teams Matches with wins in all 5 of his individual matches. His best display at national level in 2003 to date was a 3rd-place finish at the Lake Macquarie Amateur Championship in January.

Other Australians expected to perform well include Queensland's Richard Moir (whose national level wins include the 2002 Riversdale Cup and 2001 SAGA Invitational) and New South Welshman James Nitties (semi-finalist last year and Leading Amateur at the 2001 Australian Open - Nitties' 2003 form has been the most consistently impressive of any amateur in the country). 21 year-old Victorians Luke Hickmott and Jarrod Lyle (winner of the Lake Macquarie Amateur Championship in January), and 18 year-old New South Welshman Nick Flanagan, who won the Tasmanian Open in February, also loom as strong possibilities.

Western Australia's 2001 Wilson Australian Junior Amateur Champion and 2001 World Junior Champion, Rick Kulacz, will also be looking for a strong showing.

Of the Internationals, the most likely prospects include Scottish players Jack Doherty (20 - 2002 Welsh Stroke Play Champion - played at the 2002 Eisenhower Trophy and 2002 Walker Cup), Jamie McLeary (21 - 2002 Walker Cup, 2001 Scottish Youths Champion), Eric Ramsay (23 - 2002 Edward Trophy winner); Swede Mikael Detterberg (20); and New Zealand's 19 year-old semi-finalist from last year, Mathew Holten.

In total, 273 players with handicaps of 4.4 or better will play in the first two rounds of stroke play qualifying this Thursday and Friday (20 and 21 March) at Mount Lawley and Royal Perth. There will then be a cut, with the leading 100 players and ties progressing to round 3 (Saturday at Royal Perth). Round 4 will be played at Mount Lawley on Sunday. The leading 32 players will then decide the championship over five rounds of elimination match play at Mount Lawley from Monday 24 to Wednesday 26 March (with only the final being played over 36 holes).

The Wilson Australian Amateur Champion will receive a three-year exemption into the field for the Australian Open.

Other points of interest:
* The last champion to win multiple titles was Doug Bachli (1948 & 1962).
* Since 1952 there have been 50 different champions.
* Three golfers have won the title four times - H A Howden (1896-98, 1901), the Honourable Michael Scott (1905, 07, 09-10) and Jim Ferrier (1935-36, 38-39).
* Previous winners now in the professional ranks include Bruce Devlin (1959), Bob Shearer (1969), Terry Gale (1974), Mike Clayton (1978), Wayne Smith (1983), Chris Gray (1990), Lucas Parsons (1991), Michael Campbell (1992), Greg Chalmers (1993), Warren Bennett (1994), Mathew Goggin (1995), David Gleeson (1996), Kim Felton (1997), Brett Rumford (1998), Brendan Jones (1999), Brad Lamb (2000), and Andrew Buckle (2001). The late Roger Mackay was also an Australian Amateur Champion (1980).

Source - AGU

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