Heavy rain late on Friday at Royal Park I Roveri Golf Club near Turin, Italy, forced the final of the European Amateur Team Championship to be reduced to one foursomes and four singles matches, but nothing could deny Sweden from winning the event for the first time since 2019.
Having seen off Spain and the week’s surprise package Estonia on the way to the final, the Swedes had an early scare against the Netherlands before their class shone through with a 3-2 victory.
Dutchman Jerry Ji, who recently completed his fifth-year college season at Illinois, deserves special mention for topping the 36-hole stroke-play qualifiers with a 14-under total of 130 and winning four of his five match-play ties.
The week in Italy was also notable for a surprisingly weak performance from England, which lost to the Netherlands and the home side in the knockout stages before redeeming itself somewhat with a victory over Spain that secured seventh place. Germany defeated Estonia in the bronze-medal playoff.
At Real Sociedad Hípica Española Club de Campo in Madrid, Spain, there was a tight tussle for the women’s gold medal that was eventually won by Germany.
The Germans and final opponent France shared the spoils in the morning foursomes, and there was more of the same in the first three singles matches out, but Chiara Horder and Helen Briem both secured victories on the 16th green to close out a 4½-2½ triumph.
Briem, who is No. 2 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking, is already a three-time winner on the Ladies European Tour’s second-tier Access Series, and she was undefeated in five of her six bracket matches last week. Horder, who will be a senior at Mississippi State, won the 2023 Women’s Amateur Championship. They were a formidable duo on paper and, last week at least, also in reality.
England claimed the bronze medal with a 5-3 victory in the playoff.
There was joy for England at the European Girls’ Team Championship at Göteborgs Golf Klubb in Gothenburg, Sweden. The team had not won the event since 2005 and didn’t look like reversing that trend halfway through the final against a German side which won the two morning foursomes in comfortable fashion.
But the English were dominant in the singles, winning the first four matches and halving the last for a 4½-2½ triumph. Italy defeated Belgium in the bronze-medal playoff.
Finally, in the European Boys’ Team Championship at Diamond Country Club in Vienna, Austria, France defeated England, 3½-1½, in another final reduced to one foursomes match and four singles following weather disruption on Friday that pushed the completion of England’s semifinal into Saturday morning. England’s only full-point winner in that final was Kris Kim, the 16-year-old who made the cut in the PGA Tour’s CJ Cup Byron Nelson in May.
The French had qualified for the knockout stages as the top-ranked team and redeemed themselves after being denied in extra holes last year by Sweden. This year’s Swedish team claimed bronze by defeating Germany, 4-1.
RESULTS: MEN | WOMEN
Matt Cooper