ENGLAND NAME THREE NEW CAPS TO FACE FRANCE
 Matthew
Haines, the reigning English Under 18 Champion from Kent,
is one of three new caps in the England team for the international
with France, supported by Your Golf Holidays, at Frilford
Heath, Oxfordshire, on 10th and 11th May.
The other newcomers are Leicestershire's Neil Chaudhuri and
Steven Uzzell (pictured left - photo courtesy of Tom Ward)
from Yorkshire. The rest of the team is Matthew Cryer, Sam
Hutsby, Dale Whitnell, Daniel Willett, Gary Wolstenholme and
Chris Wood. The reserves are Edward Richardson and Matthew
Baldwin.
Six of those named were in the winning Home Internationals
team in Ireland last September.
“We have three newcomers but this is a strong team
and if we get the rub of the green we should be able to record
another win,” says England Captain Jonathan Plaxton.
“The French will also be strong. They reached the final
of the European Championship last year so we are expecting
a tough match.”
Haines, 18, from the Rochester & Cobham club, won the
Under 18 title for the Carris Trophy at Saunton last July,
a success that followed his maiden Boy Cap in the European
Boys Team Championships in Denmark. He was also a member of
the victorious Boys Home Internationals team and the winning
GB&I side against Europe in the Jacques Leglise Trophy.
The 2007 winner of the Peter McEvoy Trophy, Haines was also
a member of the winning England team in the Honda International
Junior Championship in Japan and was included in this year’s
England A Squad.
Chaudhuri, 23, a former winner of the Duncan Putter, the
Czech Amateur Championship and joint winner of the Peruvian
Amateur, has just returned from Australia where he was a member
of the England squad that lost The Ashes clash by a single
point. He later reached the quarter finals of the Australian
Amateur Championship.
Uzzell, 24, was also a member of The Ashes squad Down Under.
The left-hander has helped Yorkshire win the English County
Championship for the past two years and in 2007 reached the
semi-finals of the Yorkshire Championship and finished runner-up
in the Lee Westwood Trophy. A member of the England A Squad
last year, Uzzell stepped up to the Elite Squad for 2008.
Hutsby, Whitnell, Willett and Wood made their debuts in last
year’s Home Internationals, while all four were also
on the recent Ashes trip to Australia.
Hutsby, 19, from Hampshire, won the Spanish Amateur Championship
and the Duke of York Young Champions event in 2006 and the
St Mellion International last year. He has already tasted
success in 2008 with a recent victory in the Bernard Darwin
Salver.
Whitnell, 19, was the Daily Telegraph Junior Champion in
2006 and the North of England Youths Champion last year. While
other victories may have eluded him, the Essex teenager has
been runner-up in the Sir Henry Cooper Junior Masters, the
French Open Stroke Play and the Tillman Trophy, while he reached
the semi-finals of the Australian Amateur recently.
Willett, 20, currently leads the R&A’s Amateur
World Ranking following victories in the South of England
Stroke Play Championship, the English Amateur, Spanish Amateur
and last week’s Australian Stroke Play. The Sheffield-based
player was also a member of the winning England team in last
autumn’s Spirit International in Texas and is also Yorkshire
Champion.
Wood, 20, from Gloucestershire, enjoyed a successful 2007
in which he topped the PING/EGU Order of Merit. He won the
West of England Stroke Play and the Russian Amateur and was
runner-up in the South West Championship, the Tillman Trophy
and the Gloucestershire Championship. He was also a quarter
finalist in the Amateur Championship and was a member of the
team that won the inaugural Portugal Nations Cup.
If the England team has a decidedly youthful appearance,
Cryer and Wolstenholme will provide the experience.
Cryer, 32, from Coventry, made his full England debut in
the 2005 Home Internationals and has played in most matches
since. A regular winner in the Midlands, his other successes
include victory in the 2004 Czech Amateur, the semi-finals
of the English and Italian Amateur Championships and runner-up
in the Russian Amateur in 2006. Last year, he lost to Willett
in the English Amateur final before winning the British Mid
Amateur title. He was also second in the Midland Open Amateur,
third in the South of England Stroke Play and sixth in the
Lytham Trophy. This year he won the Avondale Medal in Australia.
For Wolstenholme, 47, England’s most capped player,
this will be his seventh meeting with the French. His first
came in 1988 at The Berkshire and he has played in every match
since with the exception of the 2004 encounter. Now based
in Cumbria, he passed 200 caps against Spain this time last
year and has now topped 214 caps for his country. His list
of successes at home and abroad are numerous but include two
Amateur Championships, six Walker Cup appearances, and four
Eisenhower Trophy appearances.
The international with France goes back to 1934 and Your
Golf Holidays will be the inaugural sponsor for the event.
Past results show that England has generally held sway, but
the recent improvement in French golf has seen them win three
of the past six encounters including two on English soil.
They won 15-9 at Sunningdale in 1996 and 12½ -11½
at Royal St George’s four years ago. France also won
at Les Bordes in 1998, but England won the last match in 2006
in Medoc 16½ -7½.
The encounter will be particularly poignant for Plaxton as
he was in the England team that beat France in 1984, the last
occasion it was played at Frilford Heath. “I recall
standing next to Jean Van de Velde in the team photograph
and I also recall playing Phillipe Ploujoux, the former Amateur
Champion. They are happy memories as we won 16-8, so a repeat
would be nice.”
Golf fans are encouraged to turn up to see some of today's
leading players in what promises to be a superb contest
England team: Neil Chaudhuri (The Leicestershire),
Matthew Cryer (Coventry), Matthew Haines (Rochester &
Cobham), Sam Hutsby (Liphook), Steven Uzzell (Hornsea), Dale
Whitnell (Five Lakes), Daniel Willett (Rotherham), Gary Wolstenholme
(Carus Green), Chris Wood (Long Ashton). Reserves: Edward
Richardson (Rye) and Matthew Baldwin (Royal Birkdale).
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