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THE AMATEUR GAME By Colin Callander
England’s Harry Hall consolidated his fine start to the season when he claimed a share of seventh place at the Australian Master of the Amateurs tournament at Royal Melbourne.
The 20-year-old former boy international from Truro came into the event having posted a top-10 finish at the South Beach Amateur in Miami. He proceeded to maintain that sort of form by travelling Down Under and posting rounds of 75, 71, 71 and 69 to finish 16 shots behind runaway winner David Micheluzzi on 2-over-par 286.
Hall finished ahead of 21-year-old Matthew Jordan (Royal Liverpool), 20-year-old Gian-Marco Petrozzi (Trentham), 21-year-old David Hague (Malton & Norton) and 21-year-old Jake Burnage (Saunton), the four players who were selected as part of England Golf’s official squad for a four-week trip taking in the Master of the Amateurs, the Australian Amateur at Lake Karrinyup and Wanneroo, the Avondale Amateur and the New South Wales Amateur at Royal Canberra and Gungahlin.
Jordan was the best of that group at Royal Melbourne after closing with a 70 to finish tied 13th on 289. Welsh Stroke Play champion Petrozzi claimed a share of 19th place two shots further back while Hague was tied 36th and Burnage tied 42nd. Other English finishers included Joseph Long, who was tied 40th, and Mitch Waite, who finished alongside Burnage.
Micheluzzi owed his latest triumph to a fast finish.
The 20-year-old current Victorian Amateur champion was seven shots adrift of halfway leader Darcy Brereton after opening rounds of 72 and 69, but moved one ahead with a third-round 65 and then extended his lead to five with a superb closing 64 to finish at 14-under 270. America’s Shintaro Ban completed his tournament with an 8-under-par 63 to tie Brereton for second place while current Australian No 1 and past US Junior Amateur champion Min Woo Lee finished with a 67 to claim fourth place, seven shots further back on 2-under 282.
The first women’s Master of the Amateurs event was won by reigning Japanese champion Yuka Yasuda, who shot 65 in the third round on her way to a five-shot victory ahead of Australia’s Julienne Soo on 3-over-par 287. Australians Robyn Choi, Kirsty Hodgkins, Stephanie Kyriacou and Becky Kaye occupied the next four places while US Curtis Cup player Mariel Galdiano was seventh on 302.
The leading men and women, minus Hall, now move on to the Australian Amateur, where they will have to come through a 36-hole stroke-play qualifier to reach the match-play stage.
Defending champion Matias Sanchez comes into the men’s event in fine form having finished as low amateur at the recent Australian Open while last year’s runner-up Lee will be buoyed by his solid performance at Royal Melbourne. Other leading Australians taking part include Micheluzzi, Zach Murray, Dylan Perry, Charlie Dann and Josh Armstrong.
The strong English contingent headed by Jordan will be bidding to emulate Scotland’s Connor Syme, who claimed the title at the Metropolitan Club in 2016 and will be joined in the field Canada’s Hugo Bernard and Joey Savoie and by several of the leading players from South Korea and India.
Scotland’s Gabrielle MacDonald is the sole European representative in the women’s tournament, which for the past two years has been won by South Korea’s Min-Ji Park (2016) and Hye-Jin Choi (2017).
Sam Locke, the reigning national champion, heads a new-look Scottish men’s squad for the 2018 season.
Locke, a 19-year-old who originally was a member at Banchory but is now playing out of Stonehaven, is joined by three newcomers – Darren Howie, Jamie Stewart and Eric McIntosh – plus several other players who have spent the past 12 months transitioning from the boys into the men’s game.
The full 10-man squad comprises Locke, 18-year-old Howie (Peebles), 18-year-old Stewart (Old Course Ranfurly), 19-year-old McIntosh (Bruntsfield Links), 19-year-old Rory Franssen (Inverness), 19-year-old Sandy Scott (Nairn), 20-year-old Calum Fyfe (Cawder), 21-year-old Ryan Lumsden (Royal Wimbledon), 22-year-old Euan Walker (Kilmarnock Barassie) and the veteran 36-year-old Matt Clark (Kilmacolm).
There is no place for recent stalwart Craig Howie, Darren’s 22-year-old brother, who is expected to turn professional in the coming weeks.
Scottish Golf has been forced into naming what is a relatively inexperienced squad after the likes of Syme, Robert MacIntyre, Liam Johnston, Craig Ross and Chris MacLean all made the switch to the professional ranks towards the end of last year.
The exodus has meant that for the first time the Scottish authorities also have elected to name a mixed-gender transitional support squad instead of a Boys’ squad with it being made up of reigning Scottish Boys’ Open champion John Paterson (St Andrews New) together with Jillian Farrell (Cardross) and Hazel MacGarvie (Troon Ladies).
There is a more settled look to the new Scottish women’s squad with reigning national champion Connie Jaffrey (Troon Ladies) taking her place alongside Gemma Batty (Moffat), Eilidh Briggs (Kilmacolm), Chloé Goadby (St Regulus), Shannon McWilliam (Aboyne), Hannah McCook (Granton-on-Spey), Heather Munro (Monifieth) and Clara Young (North Berwick). The latest Girls’ squad comprises Megan Ashley and Kirsty Brodie (both Strathmore), Hannah Darling (Broomieknowe), Louise Duncan (West Kilbride) and Jennifer Rankine (Haggs Castle).
The Scots have still to name their squad for their annual warm-weather training in South Africa but Locke, Fyfe, Paterson and Darren Howie are all in the draw for the South African Stroke Play Championship at Peaconwood on 6-9 February, the African Amateur Stroke Play Championship at Glendower on 13-16 February and for the stroke-play qualifier for the Sanlam South African Amateur Championship at Durban Country Club on 25-26 February. It is anticipated it will be a mixed squad selected to make the trip.
In the meantime a mixed group of Scotland’s most promising young players have been gaining experience after being named for a couple of trips to Morocco.
The most recent trip to North Africa came last week when 11-year-old Grace Crawford (Gullane) and 14-year-old Scottish Girls’ champion Darling teamed up with 17-year-old Duncan, 14-year-old Aidan O’Hagan (Old Course Ranfurly), 17-year-old Lewis Irvine (Kirkhill) and 14-year-old Calum Scott (Nairn) to finish second behind Spain in the Moroccan Boys’ and Girls’ Championship over the Jack Nicklaus-designed Samanah Golf Club in Marrakech.
Darling became the youngest player to win her national girls’ title when she won last year’s championship aged just 13.
Northern Ireland’s Tom McKibbin started his 2018 season on a high note when he defied strong winds to win the Junior Honda Classic over the Champion course at the PGA National Resort and Spa in Florida.
McKibbin, 15, carded two rounds of 74 to claim a one-shot victory on 4-over-par 148 and adds to his previous haul of titles, which includes the 2015 Under-12 World Championship, the 2017 Ulster Under-16 Championship and the 14-and-15 division at last month’s Doral Publix Junior Classic in Miami where he finished two shots ahead of Portugal’s Kiko Francisco Coelho.
His victory in the latter event meant he followed in the footsteps of fellow Holywood Golf Club member Rory McIlroy, who was a victor in the same event in 1998.
“I took on the Bear Trap and won,” the Irish junior international tweeted in reference to the 15th, 16th and 17th holes at the Champion course, which are widely regarded as one of the most demanding three-hole stretches on the PGA Tour. “Great couple of days here. Thanks everyone for your support.”
McKibbin announced after his Junior Honda Classic victory that he had committed to join the University of Florida’s men’s golf squad in 2021 where world No 8 Alejandro Tosti, world No 13 Andy Zhang and world No 18 John Axelsen all are in the current squad.
England’s Sam Horsfield was also part of the Gators’ setup before quitting the college after two years last May in order to turn professional and subsequently topping the field at November’s European Tour Qualifying School.
Roanne Tomlinson
England’s Roanne Tomlinson made quite a name for herself during her winter break from college in the United States.
Tomlinson, a student at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, ended the year when she carded rounds of 68, 74 and 74 for 216 to finish second behind Katie Yoo at the Orlando International Amateur Championship at Disney World’s Palm course and then straight after the New Year celebrations posted rounds of 77, 71 and 76 for 224 in testing conditions to finish fourth behind the highly rated Yujeong Son at the Harder Hall Women’s Invitational.
English international and 2018 Curtis Cup squad member Annabell Fuller was tied seventh in the latter event with rounds of 77, 74 and 78 for 229.
Tomlinson was a junior captain at Haydock Park and a member of the Lancashire girls’ and women’s teams before her family moved to the Orlando area to support her attempts to find a place at college. She started out at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas, before switching to Seminole State and then to Kennesaw State last autumn.
Last year she distinguished herself by winning the Florida State Golf Association Amateur Championship and then went on to post three top-12 finishes in her first four starts at her new college. She will begin the new college season alongside her Kennesaw State team-mates at next month’s Moon Golf Invitational in Melbourne, Florida.
Son’s victory at the Harder Hall event was her third in a three-week spell after also having won both the Dixie Amateur and the Allstate Sugar Bowl Tommy Moore Invitational. It was her second successive win in the former and the third in the latter.
The 16-year-old’s next outing comes at the Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific Championship where the winner receives starts in the HSBC Women’s World Championship, the ANA Inspiration and the Ricoh Women’s British Open.
Son was born in South Korea and moved with her family to the US when she was 6. She is not eligible for a place in the US Curtis Cup team because she is not a US citizen.
Germany’s Claudio Consul won the President’s Putter for the second time in four years when he swept to victory in this year’s tournament at Rye.
In a repeat of the 2015 final, the 34-year-old former German and Italian amateur champion beat fellow Oxford graduate Ben Keogh, 3 and 2, to extend an impressive record; since 2009, he has won twice, finished runner-up once and lost twice in the semi-finals.
Keogh’s near miss on this occasion means that he has now finished runner-up in three out of the past four years and four times in total since 2009.
The President’s Putter is an annual event run by the Oxford & Cambridge Golfing Society and staged annually at its spiritual home at Rye. Two-time Amateur champion E W E "Ernest" Holderness won the event on the first four occasions it was staged between 1920 and 1924 while other winners include Bernard Darwin, Roger Wethered, Leonard Crawley, PB "Laddie" Lucas, Donald Steel and Ted Dexter.
Former English boy international Pavan Sagoo completed a Monterey Peninsula double with an impressive victory at the McClure Cup at Bayonet Blackhorse Golf Club in California.
Sagoo, a senior at St Mary’s College in Moraga, California, carded rounds of 69 and 68 to finish four shots ahead of Edward Hackett and Thomas Hutchison and repeat his success at the AmateurGolf.com Christmas Classic at Del Monte Golf Club at the end of last year.
Sagoo was born and brought up in London and represented England at Under-16 level on several occasions during the 2011 season. Last April he claimed his second individual title in three years at St Mary’s when he birdied the first hole of a sudden-death play-off to win the Ping Cougar Classic at Riverside Country Club in Utah.
Spain’s Ángel Hidalgo produced some sparkling golf to win the Copa Andalucía at Real Club de Golf Guadalmina.
The Spanish international fired rounds of 69, 70, 71 and 68 to finish five shots ahead of compatriots Víctor Pastor and Eugenio López-Chacarra on 10-under-par 278. Ireland’s Jonathan Yates finished tied sixth on 291.