Dear and Booth head Scotland squad

for European team championship

NEWS RELEASE ISSUED BY SCOTTISH GOLF UNION
Eisenhower Trophy Champions Gavin Dear and Wallace Booth will spearhead Scotland’s campaign when they take on their Continental rivals at the European amateur team championship which gets underway in Wales at the end of this month.
The tournament, which changed from a biennial to an annual fixture last year, will be hosted at Conwy (Caenarvonshire) Golf Club in Wales from June 30 to July 4.
The Perthshire pair will hope to boost Scotland’s chances of dominating at European level after imposing a convincing victory to become current holders of the world amateur team championship. Dear has enjoyed significant success since Scotland’s triumph in Australia last October, winning the Dixie men’s amateur championship just several months later and this year, winning the Craigmillar Park Open, the AIB Irish amateur stroke play championship and more recently finishing runner up in the Bidwells Scottish stroke play championship.
Booth, the 2008 Scottish stroke-play champion, has pulled off a number of strong performances including finishing runner up to Dear in Ireland which has left him in the upper reaches of the current SGU Order of Merit standings.
Like Dear, Booth’s form earned him a place as one of seven Scots selected for this year’s GB&I Walker Cup Squad.
A third player from the Big County, Blairgowrie’s Glenn Campbell, has also received a call up. The former Allied Surveyors Scottish amateur ahampion and winner of this year’s Scottish Champion of Champions will represent his country again, enabling the Scottish international to add another cap to his impressive CV.
New South Wales Amateur runner-up Ross Kellett has also made the team and like Campbell, is just one of two changes to last year’s line up at Torino, Italy.
Concluding the six-man team are two more Walker Cup squad members, Paul O’Hara and Michael Stewart. O’Hara’s title win at the Edward Trophy in addition to a number of high placed finishes sees him as the current leader of the SGU Order of Merit rankings.
Whilst for Michael Stewart, receiving the nod to make his second appearance in Scotland’s European side will be a welcome reminder of his first full cap at men’s level last year. Stewart, the 2008 Scottish boys champion departed from the domestic scene at the end of last season to embark on a golf scholarship at East Tennessee State University and earlier this year recorded his first victory for his college. The Ayrshire player won the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship by one stroke and helped East Tennessee to a fourth place finish in the team event.
Commenting on the team, SGU National Coach Ian Rae said, “The players selected have a proven track record of competing in strong international fields and achieving world class results. The team can build upon their recent success and with Scotland’s history of punching above our weight against other leading golfing nations, I am confident we can again provide a strong challenge for the medal positions in this tournament. ”
In order to contest the medal places, the Scots must progress from the two qualifying stroke play rounds to the upper flight of the match play phases. Ireland have won the title for the last two years.
Scotland Team:
Wallace Booth (Comrie)
Glenn Campbell (Blairgowrie)
Gavin Dear (Murrayshall)
Ross Kellett (Colville Park)
Paul O’Hara (Colville Park)
Michael Stewart (Troon Welbeck)