Irish quartet set for Continental clash
Ireland's Shane Lowry, Jonathan Caldwell, Luke Lennox and Alan Dunbar will be in action for Great Britain and Ireland as Europe's finest amateur golfers are preparing to do battle in the St Andrews Trophy and Jacques Leglise Trophy matches at Kingsbarns Golf Links, near St Andrews, on Friday 29 & Saturday 30 August.
Caldwell and Lowry will tee it up for Great Britain and Ireland against the Continent of Europe for The St Andrews Trophy (men’s) as Lennox and Dunbar take part in the The Jacques Leglise Trophy (boys') level.
The events share the same format with four foursomes matches in the morning followed by eight singles matches in the afternoon. It is the first time that either event has been played at Kingsbarns, which despite its relative youth is already well-established as one of the finest links golf courses in Britain
The St Andrews Trophy is played biennially, alternating years with The Walker Cup, and it's expected that several of this week's GB&I team will go on to play in next year's match against the Americans at Merion, in Pennsylvania.
Jonathan Caldwell of Ireland is the only member of the GB&I team to experience a Walker Cup, having played at Royal County Down last year. A member of the Irish side that recently won its second consecutive European Team Championship, Caldwell brings a wealth of experience to the Great Britain and Ireland team.
Shane Lowry, another of that successful Irish side, has also made the team following a superb season that has seen him rise to fourth in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, making him the highest ranked player on display this week.
Among their team mates this week will be the Scottish duo of Wallace Booth – brother of Curtis Cup player Carly Booth – and Callum Macaulay, both of whom have had excellent seasons. Booth won the Scottish Stroke Play Championship earlier in the season, while Macaulay won the Scottish Amateur just a few weeks ago.
Those enjoying good seasons are not confined to the GB&I team, however. On the European team, Germany’s Stephan Gross and Spain's Jorge Campillo are ranked fifth and sixth in the world respectively, and have repeatedly shown this season why they are ranked among the game's best amateurs. Gross in particular will come to Kingsbarns full of confidence, following his dramatic victory in the European Amateur Championship at Esbjerg in Denmark last week and his close finish at the Vodafone Challenge on the European Challenge Tour the week before that. At the latter event Gross led the field after three rounds before finishing second behind former Walker Cup player Richie Ramsay.
Campillo has had a similarly good season. He has enjoyed success both in US college golf, where he just missed out on winning the NCAA Division 1 Championship, and in Europe, with a victory in the Spanish National Championship. Campillo also reached the quarter-finals of The Amateur Championship at Turnberry; the eventual winner, Reinier Saxton of The Netherlands, makes his St Andrews Trophy debut this week.
It's not just the St Andrews Trophy teams that contain stars of the future, however. Among the players in the Jacques Leglise Trophy are Michael Stewart, the 18-year-old Scottish Boys Champion who came a close second at the St Andrews Links Trophy, and is captaining the team this week; Tommy Fleetwood, the 17-year-old from Southport who made it to the final of The Amateur Championship at Turnberry in June; and Spain's Carlos Pigem, who has won the Canarias Amateur and Andalucia Cup this year.
In recent years, the annual Jacques Leglise Trophy has been very keenly contested, with the trophy regularly moving back and forth between the two teams, but the same cannot be said of the biennial St Andrews Trophy, which has not been won by the Continent of Europe for 10 years. Yet this year, things could be tight: the Continent of Europe team for the St Andrews Trophy contains four of the 2006 Jacques Leglise team who defeated their GB&I counterparts by 19 1/2 - 4 1/2 in the Czech Republic two years ago.
St Andrews Trophy Teams
Great Britain & Ireland
Wallace Booth (Scotland)
Jonathan Caldwell (Ireland)
Matthew Haines (England)
Sam Hutsby (England)
Shane Lowry (Ireland)
Callum Macaulay (Scotland)
Chris Paisley (England)
Steven Uzzell (England)
Dale Whitnell (England)
Continent of Europe
Jorge Campillo (Spain)
Benjamin Hebert (France)
Alexandre Kaleka (France)
Stephan Gross (Germany)
Andrea Pavan (Italy)
Reinier Saxton (Netherlands)
Tim Sluiter (Netherlands)
Bjorn Akesson (Sweden)
Jesper Kennegard (Sweden)
Jacques Leglise Trophy Teams
Great Britain & Ireland
Michael Stewart (Scotland)
Alan Dunbar (Ireland)
Ben Enoch (Wales)
Tom Lewis (England)
Tommy Fleetwood (England)
Stiggy Hodgson (England)
Gary King (England)
Luke Lennox (Ireland)
Eddie Pepperell (England)
Continent of Europe
Kasper Sorensen (Denmark)
Romain Wattel (France)
Maximilian Kieffer (Germany)
Matteo Manassero (Italy)
Cristiano Terragni (Italy)
Fredrik Kollevold (Norway)
Daniel Jennevret (Sweden)
Emilio Cuartero (Spain)
Carlos Pigem (Spain)