Top class international field

for St Andrews Links Trophy

NEWS RELEASE ISSUED BY ST ANDREWS LINKS TRUST
The 21st St Andrews Links Trophy promises to be the best yet as a top-class international field prepares to play at the Home of Golf.
With Walker Cup places at Merion in September up for grabs, the Links Trophy is sure to be one of the pivotal events of the year and the majority of the Great Britain and Ireland squad will be on show in St Andrews looking to impress team boss Colin Dalgleish.
Pride of place goes to defending champion Keir McNicoll of Carnoustie, who is also the backmarker in the event with a handicap of +5.6. He pipped Troon Welbeck’s Michael Stewart and France’s Rudy Thuillier with a final-green birdie last year.
McNicoll will be joined by a group of fine young Scottish players, including Eisenhower Trophy winners Wallace Booth (Comrie) and Gavin Dear (Murrayshall) who, together with Callum Macaulay, now a professional on the European Tour, took the world amateur team title in Australia last autumn.
Highest ranked player is Sam Hutsby, who came fourth at St Andrews in 2008. The Liphook man, a fixture in the world’s top ten this year, lost narrowly to British Amateur champion Reiner Saxton in the final of the Spanish Amateur Open in March but went on to win the individual title at the European Nations Cup while helping England to the team honours.
England will be strongly represented, with newly-crowned Lytham Trophy champion James Robinson (Southport and Ainsdale), 2008 Amateur Championship runner-up Tommy Fleetwood (Formby Hall) and Todd Adcock (Nevill), the reigning English Amateur Champion, hoping to make a big impact. Luke Goddard (Hendon) and Charlie Ford (Kirby Muxloe) were members of the triumphant European Nations Cup team and Eddie Pepperell (Drayton Park) is in the Walker Cup squad.
New Course record holder Nigel Edwards (Whitchurch) will return to the Links to be joined by Welsh compatriots Rhys Enoch (Truro), Adam Runcie (Abergele), Joe Vickery (Newport) and Oliver Farr (Ludlow), who was the Eden Trophy champion at St Andrews three years ago.
Irish hopes will lean on Shane Lowry (Esker Hills) who won the Irish Amateur Closed Championship in 2007 and was third in last season’s Lytham Trophy.
The overseas contingent includes Americans Jack Eckardt (Firewheel), recently tied second at the Texas Golf Association's North Mid-Amateur and Gregory O’Mahony (The Dye Preserve), a third place finisher at the Southeastern Collegiate in Valdosta, Georgia , where he scored low round of the week. Scott Pinkney (Arizona) and Bill Rankin (University of Michigan) are two high-ranking US college golfers set to play in St Andrews.
Top-performing Canadians Peter Sauerbrei (Cataraqui) and Christopher Ross (Hamilton) will also play and there will be a return to St Andrews for South Africa‘s Derik Ferreira (Centurion) and Andre De Decker (Westlake) who will be joined by young stars Mark Fensham (Port Elizabeth) and Jake Redman (Fancourt), first and second in the Border-EP Kat Leisure 72-hole Strokeplay Championship at Fish River Country Club this April.
Brendan Smith (Pymble) and Matt Jager (Melville Glades) were members of Australia’s victorious Southern Cross Cup team, with Jager the recent winner of the New Zealand Men’s Amateur Championship. Both will be looking to emulate the excellent finishes of countrymen Scott Arnold, second in 2007 and Stephen Dartnell, runner-up in 2006. Australian Stuart Bouvier remains the only overseas player to have won the Links Trophy, back in 1990.
Europeans Alexandre Kaleka of France, third two years ago, and Pontus Widegren of Sweden will be hoping for top ten finishes.
The first two rounds of the St Andrews Links Trophy 2009 will be played on the New Course and the Old Course on 5 and 6 June, with the final two rounds taking place on the Old Course on Sunday, 7 June.