ENGLAND SQUAD SEEK ASHES REVENGE DOWN UNDER
 England’s
cricketers will have to wait until next year to regain the
Ashes but our amateur golfers get their chance next week when
they meet their Australian rivals in an Ashes clash.
England’s team, all members of the Elite Squad, will
be Neil Chaudhuri (The Leicestershire), Sam Hutsby (Liphook),
Steven Uzzell (Hornsea), Dale Whitnell (Five Lakes), Daniel
Willett (Rotherham) and Chris Wood (Long Ashton).
Having been decisively beaten 11-4 by the Aussies in the
inaugural contest a year ago in Melbourne, the England squad
will be eager for victory and if being a winner is any guide
then the six-man squad heading down under is well equipped
to succeed.
The teams will meet in a two-day Ryder Cup-style tussle at
Moonah Links in Melbourne, venue for last year’s event,
on the 8th and 9th April. There will be six singles and three
foursomes on the Legends Course on day one and another six
singles on the Open Course the following day.
Two of the squad have already tasted victory this year while
the others were winners in 2007.
Chaudhuri, 23, from Leicestershire, won the Duncan Putter
in 2006 and the Czech Amateur last year as well as gaining
a string of high finishes which helped secure his place in
the Elite Squad.
Hutsby, 19, from Hampshire, won the South of England Youths
Championship for the Bernard Darwin Trophy last week while
his successes last year included victory in the St Mellion
International Trophy and the Henriques Salver for the leading
under 20 in the Brabazon Trophy. The former Spanish Amateur
champion also made his full England debut in the Home Internationals.
Uzzell, 24, a semi-finalist in the Yorkshire Championship,
also finished runner-up in the Lee Westwood Trophy last year.
The left-hander from Hornsea has also helped Yorkshire win
the English County Championship in the past three years.
Whitnell, 19, from Essex, won the 2007 North of England Youth
Championship, finished runner-up in the French Open Stroke
Play and the Tillman Trophy and third in the Russian Amateur.
The former Daily Telegraph Junior champion, also made his
full England debut in last year’s Home Internationals.
Willett, 20, the reigning English champion, also won the
South of England Stroke Play Championship and the Yorkshire
title last year. The lad from Sheffield also finished third
in the European Amateur before making his debut for GB&I
in the Walker Cup and for England in the Home Internationals.
This year, Willett won the Spanish Amateur Championship,
which earned him entry to last week’s Open de Andalucía
at Aloha on the European Tour in which he finished a creditable
joint 19th.
Wood, 20 (pictured - photo courtesy of Tom Ward), from Gloucestershire,
topped the PING/EGU Order of Merit last year after victories
in the West of England Stroke Play and the Russian Amateur
while he was runner-up in the South West Championship, the
Tillman Trophy and the Gloucestershire Championship. He also
reached the Amateur Championship quarter finals, made his
full England debut in the Home Internationals and was a member
of the three-man team that won the inaugural Portugal Nations
Cup.
Following the Ashes, the England squad will move on to compete
in the Australian Amateur Championship at Royal Adelaide on
14th - 20th April.
The Australian Amateur, with a qualifying competition over
72 holes of stroke play, is the country’s oldest championship,
having been inaugurated in 1894. The complete field will play
over the Grange and Royal Adelaide courses for the first two
days with the leading 100 players and ties qualifying for
the final two rounds. These will be played at Royal Adelaide
after which the leading 32 players will move forward to the
match play event for the final three days.
The only English winner of the Australia Amateur title in
recent years has been Warren Bennett in 1994.
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