Golf Australia has announced the final men’s and women’s teams to represent Australia at the World Amateur Team Championships to be played from 27 September 10 October at Gloria, Antalya and Cornelia Golf Clubs in Antalya, Turkey. The men’s Eisenhower Trophy team is Daniel Nisbet (Queensland), Cameron Smith (Queensland) and Matthew Stieger (New South Wales). The men’s Team Coach will be Tony Meyer (Queensland) and Brad James will be the Team Manager. The women’s Espirito Santo Trophy team is Breanna Elliott (Victoria), Whitney Hillier (Western Australia) and Min Jee Lee (Western Australia). The women’s team coach will be Shani Waugh (Western Australia) and Matt Cutler will be the women’s Team Manager. Daniel Nisbet (Caboolture) won the Players Amateur Championship in South Carolina in July and won the Lake Macquarie Amateur earlier in the year. He was runner-up at the Australian Amateur Championship in January. Cameron Smith (Royal Queensland) is a former Australian Junior and Australian Men’sStroke Play champion and finished runner-up to Nisbet at the Lake Macquarie Amateur and recorded a top 4 finish at the Porter Cup in the United States. Matthew Stieger (St Michaels) is a former Australian Amateur champion and enjoyed a successful northern summer schedule making the quarter finals of the British Amateur Championship and recorded top 5 finishes at the Scottish Amateur and Porter Cup. Breanna Elliott (Yarrawonga and Border) won the Trans-National Amateur in South Carolina in July and won the South Australian, Western Australian and New South Wales Stroke Play titles earlier in the year. Whitney Hillier (Joondalup) won the Malaysian Amateur Championship, Lake Macquarie Amateur and the Riversdale Cup earlier in the year and was the medallist at the Trans-National Amateur in the United States in July. Min Jee Lee (Royal Fremantle), the World Number 6, became the first Australian to win the US Girls Junior Championship last month. She is a former Singapore Ladies Amateur, Western Australian Amateur and Handa Junior Masters champion and was runner-up in the Australian Amateur Championship in 2011. Many players, both elite amateur and professional, consider representing their country at the World Amateur Team Championships as a career highlight and I have no doubt these teams will represent Australia with pride, Golf Australia CEO Stephen Pitt said There have been some really good performances so far this year, both domestically and overseas, and these players have the form and level of international experience to take on the level of competition that they ll be up against in Turkey, Golf Australia High Performance Director Brad James said. The Australian men’s team last won the Eisenhower Trophy in 1996 in a team that included Jamie Crow, David Gleeson, Jarrod Moseley and Brett Partridge. The last Australian women’s team to win the Espirito Santo Trophy was Katherine Hull, Lindsey Wright and Vicky Thomas (nee Uwland) in 2002. Each team has two or three players and plays 18 holes of stroke play for 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. Organised by the International Golf Federation, teams of men and women come from all over the world to compete for the Eisenhower Trophy (men) and Espirito Santo Trophy (women) within three different zones: Asia Pacific, America and Europe & Africa. Australia last hosted the championships in Adelaide in 2008.
Author: Golf Australia