ENGLAND’S ELITE SQUAD PLAYERS COMPETE IN JONES CUP
Five of England’s leading players, which include members
of the 2005 Walker Cup squad, have been invited to the United
States to compete in the biennial Jones Cup later this month.
A field of 80 players, including some of the best amateurs
from the US and the UK, will compete over 54 holes of stroke
play over the Ocean Forest Course at Sea Island, Georgia,
from 18th - 20th February.
The English quintet, all members of the World Class Performance
Programme Elite Squad, comprises Lee Corfield from Somerset,
Surrey’s Adam Gee, Gary Lockerbie from Cumbria, Middlesex-based
Matthew Richardson and Yorkshire’s Michael Skelton.
The event will see prospective Walker Cup members from both
sides of the Atlantic playing head to head six months prior
to GB&I’s defence of the trophy in Chicago in August.
Corfield, Lockerbie and Richardson were in the Walker Cup
squad that travelled to Chicago last summer in preparation
for match.
Corfield, 22, a full England cap since 2002, finished runner-up
in last year’s Amateur Championship at St Andrews. He
is also a former winner of the Lytham Trophy and the West
of England Stroke Play and helped England triumph in the Sherry
Cup last year.
Gee, 24, made his full England debut against France at Royal
St George’s last May, after reaching the match play
stages of the Spanish Amateur Championship and the semi-finals
of the Portuguese Amateur. In September, he helped England
regain the Home Internationals title at Prestwick and scored
three-and-a-half points in helping Surrey win the English
County Finals at Worksop.
Lockerbie, 22, the 2003 English champion, earned his first
full cap in that year’s Home Internationals and partnered
Skelton to victory in the Juan Carlos Tailhade Cup in Argentina.
Last year he finished runner-up to Richardson in the European
Amateur in Sweden and was England’s top scorer at the
Home Internationals with four-and-a-half points.
Richardson, 20, has enjoyed a string of successes in recent
years at boys and senior levels, culminating in his victory
in the Brabazon Trophy at West Lancs last May. His triumph
in the European Amateur in Sweden was the first by an Englishman
for 13 years and he also represented GB&I in the St Andrews
Trophy and England in the Home Internationals and the Eisenhower
Trophy.
Skelton, 20, was the youngest member of the Walker Cup team
that beat the United States at Ganton in 2003, having just
made his senior England debut in the Home Internationals at
Ballybunion. A former English under 16 champion, he enjoyed
a successful 2003, winning the Henriques Salver for the best
under 20 score in the Brabazon Trophy, before winning the
Welsh Stroke Play Championship. He was also runner-up to Lockerbie
in the English Amateur.
EGU Performance Director, Nigel Furniss commented, “This
is an excellent opportunity for our players to compete against
some of the best players in America at an excellent and testing
venue. The World Class Performance Programme, funded via Sport
England, allows our players to take full advantage of such
opportunities, which provide valuable experience in their
development.”
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