WATC - EISENHOWER TROPHY 2014

04/09/2014

Andy Borg, JJ Micallef and Daniel Holland (members of the Royal Malta Golf Club and of the MGA National Team Squad) will this Friday depart Malta on their way to Japan to participate in the World Team Amateur Championships - Eisenhower Trophy - that will be held in Karuizawa between Wednesday 10th and Saturday 13th September. Upon their arrival, they will be joined by Nick Borg who resides in Japan and who will assist the team during their experience taking the role of team manager to ensure that the players remain focused on their game and not have to deal with the daily administrative practicalities.

Conducted by the International Golf Federation, which comprises the 137 national governing bodies in 131 countries, the World Amateur Team Championships are a biennial international amateur golf competition that rotates among three geographic zones of the world: Asia/Pacific, Americas and Europe/Africa.

This will be Malta’s second show in this prestigious event considered as the “Olympics” for amateur golf. Malta participated for the first time two years ago in Turkey when Team Malta placed 65th out of the 72 teams. The team was then composed of Andy Borg, Ruud Critien and Peter Satariano with Andy registering the best score out of the three with a +31 over 72 holes.

The Championships actually kicked off on Wednesday 3rd September) with the Espirito Santo Trophy for the Ladies who, like their male counterparts, play on the Oshitate and on the Iriyama courses. For the Eisenhower, the Oshitate Course will be set up at 7010 yards and will play to par 33-38=71 whilst the Iriyama will we 7008 yards to a par of 36-36=72. The six golf courses at Karuizawa were designed by Robert Trent Jones II (grandson of Bobby Jones) and opened to the golfing public in 1993.

The competition is a team event where each team has two or three players, who each play 18 holes of stroke play over four days. In each round, the total of the two lowest scores from each team will constitute the team score for the round. The four-day (72-hole) total will be the team’s score for the championship.

We take this opportunity to thank the Malta Sports Council, the Maltese Olympic Committee and the R&A who have all kindly assisted the MGA with its coaching and competition requirements over these last months.

We also thank our corporate and supporting partners – especially BORTEX (suits) and GLENMUIR (polo shirts) who have tremendously eased the purchase of Team Malta’s kit – and we ask you to join us in wishing our players a safe journey to and back from these championships as well as every success during their stay.

May the course be with them!

FOLLOW IT ON THE INTERNET
The IGF have created a Facebook fan page which will be constantly updated with photos and stories during the championships. Alternatively for starting times, scoring and other news you can link through the IGF website http://www.igf.org.watc. If you have a Facebook account, do not hesitate to like, share or recommend the page to your friends. Please click on https://www.facebook.com/WorldAmateurTeamChampionship to view the page.