ENGLAND YOUNGSTERS OFF TO RUSSIA WITH CLUBS
 Four
of England’s brightest young talents will attempt to
secure a second successive victory when they compete in the
Russian Amateur Championship later this month.
Matthew Baldwin, Sam Hutsby, Dale Whitnell and Chris Wood
will seek to succeed Seve Benson as champion at Le Meridien
Moscow Country Club on 26th - 29th June.
Benson won the title a year ago when he pipped fellow England
international Matt Cryer over the same course, the Surrey
lad finishing on seven-under-par 281, a shot ahead of Cryer,
while Luke Collins was equal fourth on 285.
Baldwin, 21, (pictured left - photo courtesy of Tom Ward)
who has just won the Lancashire Championship for the second
time, is a former Under 16 and Boy International. He won the
English Under 16 Championship for the McGregor Trophy in 2002,
having already secured his county’s boys title, and
reached the quarter finals of the English Amateur Championship
a year later. Tied sixth in the 2004 Brabazon Trophy, Baldwin
represented England in the European Boys Team Championships
and the Boys Home Internationals that year as well as GB&I
in the Jacques Leglise Trophy.
Last year he was third in the Scottish Open Stroke Play and
the Danish Amateur and earlier this year reached the semi-finals
of the Portuguese Amateur. He is a member of the England ‘A’
Squad.
Hutsby, 18, last year’s England Boy Captain, has also
been capped at under 16 and boys levels. A year ago the Hampshire
youngster pulled off a sensational victory in the Spanish
Amateur, beating the then US Amateur Champion Edoardo Molinari.
In 2006 he also won the Duke of York Young Champions tournament
and was third in the Daily Telegraph Junior Championship.
Two weeks ago he won the George Henriques Trophy for the best
score by a GB&I player aged under 20 in finishing joint
fourth in the Brabazon Trophy. Like Baldwin, he is a member
of the England ‘A’ Squad.
Whitnell, 18, has emerged over the past two years. Essex
Boys Champion in 2004, last year he reached the last 16 of
the Amateur Championship, finished joint runner-up in the
Sir Henry Cooper Junior Masters and third in the Carris Trophy
before making his England debut in the Boys Home Internationals.
He went on to win the Daily Telegraph Junior Championship
in Dubai and recently won the Bernard Darwin Salver before
finishing tied sixth in the Lytham Trophy. He is the current
Essex Champion and a member of the England Under 21 Squad.
Wood, 19, a former Gloucestershire junior and South West
Counties Boys Champion, won the St Andrews Boys Championship
in 2005 and finished fifth in the Carris Trophy. Last year
he finished tied fifth in the South of England Stroke Play
Championship and reached the quarter finals of the Italian
Amateur. A member of the England ‘A’ Squad, earlier
this year Wood finished joint winner with England cap David
Horsey in the West of England Stroke Play and last week he
lost his Gloucestershire Championship in a sudden death playoff.
The Russian Amateur attracts players from many countries,
especially the former Eastern Bloc nations that are emerging
in the game.
Le Meridien Moscow Country Club was Russia’s first
18-hole championship course. Situated 40 minutes outside the
capital, it has hosted events on the European Challenge Tour
for several years and last year the Russia Open on the main
European Tour. Designed by Robert Trent Jones Jnr, the magnificent
par 72 layout is carved out of a pine forest and measures
over 7,000 yards.
The Russian Open Amateur is contested over 72 holes of stroke
play with a cut after 54 holes, the leading 45 players and
ties going on to the final round.
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