Ireland formally became an individual nation yesterday for future stagings of the men's World Amateur Team Championship. Otherwise known as the Eisenhower Trophy, it is controlled by the World Amateur Golf Council, which has accepted an entry from the GUI into the next staging in Kuala Lumpur on October 10th to 13th, 2002.

The decision ends a process which had become quite protracted since the central council decided in 1995 that Ireland should compete alone in this four-member biennial strokeplay event. Since the championship was launched at St Andrews in 1958, they had been part of a British and Irish line-up, selected by the Royal and Ancient.

Prominent GUI officials were unhappy, however, at what they felt had been a poor Irish representation over the years. By that stage, Britain and Ireland had been victorious on only three occasions - 1964, 1976 and 1988 - and of those, the only Irish participants were Garth McGimpsey and Eoghan O'Connell in 1988 in Sweden.

Since then, Paddy Gribben played in the victorious team of 1998, but there was no Irishman in the side which finished second behind the US in Berlin last autumn. Indeed such notables as Tom Craddock, David Sheahan and Pat Mulcare were never selected.

When advocating a break, the GUI made it clear that they had no wish to alienate the other home unions through unilateral action. Now, with the agreement of England, Scotland and Wales, all four home unions will compete in future as individual countries.

In this context, they will be attempting to emulate Sweden by becoming only the second European country to win an event which has been dominated by the US with 11 victories from 21 stagings.