NEW CAP HAINES HEADS STRONG TEAM TO JAPAN
 Lytham
Trophy Champion Matt Haines and McEvoy Trophy winner Stiggy
Hodgson, have been named in a highly talented four-strong
England team for the World Junior Team Championship to be
played in Japan next month.
Haines and Hodgson will be joined by two more highly successful
juniors in Gary King and Eddie Pepperell for the Championship
being staged at Chukyo Golf Club, Toyota City, Aichi-Ken,
on 18th - 21st June.
Haines, 18 (pictured - photo courtesy of Tom Ward), followed
up his success at Royal Lytham by making a superb full England
debut in last weekend’s victorious international with
two wins and one defeat in four matches. The former McEvoy
Trophy and Carris Trophy winner from Kent was capped at boys
level last year and is enjoying a successful season with top-ten
finishes in the Hampshire Hog and West of England Stroke Play.
He is also representing the EGU in America prior to travelling
to Japan.
Hodgson, 17, has three trophies to his credit this year after
wins in the McEvoy Trophy, Selborne Salver and Hampshire Salver.
The former under 16 cap from Sunningdale also finished runner-up
in the Berkhamsted Trophy and the Surrey Under 18 Championship
and is representing the EGU in Sweden later this month. Among
his previous successes have been third place in the English
Under 16 Championship and the Berkshire Trophy, while he helped
Surrey to the Boys County Championship last year.
King, who will turn 18 the day before the Japanese event,
is the Surrey Under 18 Champion who has also landed the Hampshire
Hog this year and was tied third in the McEvoy Trophy. In
2007, King won the Fairhaven Trophy, finished top in the South
East Boys Qualifying and lost a playoff for the Sir Henry
Cooper Junior Masters. He also reached the quarter finals
of the British Boys and was capped by England for the Boys
Home Internationals having already played at under 16 level.
Pepperell, 17, from Oxfordshire, lost the McEvoy to Hodgson
in a playoff and has come close to winning several other titles
including the Bernard Darwin Salver, Berkhamsted Trophy and
West of England Stroke Play. He also reached the semi-finals
of the Spanish Amateur this year and finished in the top ten
of the Hampshire Hog and Lytham Trophy.
The English Under 14 Champion in 2005, Pepperell has been
a boy cap for the past two years while in 2007 he finished
high up in the Hampshire Hog, McEvoy Trophy, South East Boys
Qualifying and European Young Masters and was a semi-finalist
in the British Boys Championship.
This will be England’s 13th appearance in the 72 hole
World Junior Team Championships. They were winners in 1998,
1999 and 2002, runners-up once and third three times including
2005.
The England team is: Matthew Haines (Rochester
& Cobham), Stiggy Hodgson (Sunningdale), Gary King (Tyrrells
Wood), and Eddie Pepperell (Drayton Park).
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