Amateur News: As the first signs of good golfing weather arrive, the long season for Ireland's amateur golfers opens in Sotogrande in Spain tomorrow with the first round of the Sherry Cup.
Ireland have sent a strong team in Irish Close champion Brian McElhinney from the North West Club, Irish Amateur Open champion Seán McTernan (Co Sligo), Darren Crowe (Dunmurry) and Michael McGeady (North West), who all hope to follow in the footsteps of Padraig Harrington, the winner of this event in 1991, when it was played only as an individual competition.
The Sherry Cup is competed for over 72 holes with the best three cards each day counting towards the team event. The individual competition will run simultaneously with the European Nations Championship, the champion collecting a Gold Sherry Wine Trophy and the Amateur Masters Jacket. If the championship ends in a tie, the teams involved will nominate one player to compete in a sudden-death play-off.
McElhinney and Crowe were members of last year's Irish team with Mark Campbell and Noel Fox which finished well down the field behind winners England, who will start favourites to retain the trophy. England, on a total of 637 for the four days, won by two shots from Italy with Spain 10 shots back in third place on 647.
The England team will comprise Lee Corfield (Burnham & Berrow), Gary Lockerbie (Penrith), Matthew Richardson (The Buckinghamshire) and Gary Wolstenholme (Kilworth Springs).
Wolstenholme has won the individual title in the Sherry Cup three times in the past five years, the last time in 2003. The 44-year-old from Leicestershire has already secured a win in 2005 with victory in the New South Wales Medal in Australia where he edged out McTernan by two shots in the final shape-up and recently competed in the Jones Cup.
England's most capped player has lost none of his appetite and enthusiasm for competition at the highest level of the amateur game and has his sights set on a sixth Walker Cup appearance in Chicago in August.
Meanwhile, the Irish team to play the Metropolitan Golf Association of New York (MGA) for the Governor Hugh Carey Cup at Carton House on May 11th and 12th will have a strong Ulster influence. Seven of the players are from Ulster clubs with Seán McTernan making up the eight-man team.
Joining McTernan will be McElhinney, Crowe, McGeady, Nicholas Grant (Clandeboye), Stephen Crowe (Dunmurry), Brendan McCarroll (Ballyliffin) and Harry Diamond (Holywood).
The US team will be captained by MGA 2004 Player of the Year Pete Meurer. The Carey Cup matches are named for former New York State Governor Hugh L Carey who founded the event as a means of stimulating sportsmanship and goodwill between the two countries.
It was inaugurated in 1996 and played at Hudson National Golf Club in Croton-On-Hudson, NY, and since then has alternated between the two countries bi-annually.
Along with Meurer, of Silver Lake, will be veteran Allan Small (53), of Fairmount, the reigning New Jersey State Amateur champion, each a six-time International Team member. They'll be joined by Michael Reardon (43), of Tuxedo, the Westchester Amateur champion, Long Island Amateur champion Mike Stamberger (33), of Plainfield, Sean Hartman (40), of Indian Hills, and Tom Yellin (52), of the Stanwich Club.
Completing the team is Patrick Pierson (41), of Minisceongo, the 2003 NY State Mid-Amateur champion and a member of the 2003 Carey Cup Team, and newcomer Craig Smith, at 23 the youngest member of the team, from Fairmount.
In a busy six weeks McElhinney, Crowe, McGeady and McTernan will be joined by Mark Campbell (Stackstown) and Richard Kilpatrick (Banbridge) for the St Andrews Links Trophy at St Andrews on May 20th-22nd, while the Irish Youths team to play Wales at Ashburnham GC on April 22nd is: Keith Crowley (Lee Valley), Harry Diamond, Paul O'Hanlon (Curragh), Aaron O'Callaghan (Douglas), Nicholas Grant and Brendan McCarroll.
