ENGLAND SEEK ANOTHER SHERRY CUP SUCCESS - 15th Mar 2005

The English Golf Union is sending a strong four-man team to defend the Sherry Cup being played at Royal Sotogrande Golf Club, Spain, on 6th - 9th April.

The team, all members of the World Class Performance Programme Elite Squad, will comprise Lee Corfield (Burnham & Berrow), Gary Lockerbie (Penrith), Matthew Richardson (The Buckinghamshire) and Gary Wolstenholme (Kilworth Springs).

Corfield was a member of the team that came out on top a year ago over the same course, a winning tally of 637, 11 under par, left him and team-mates Ross Fisher, Michael Skelton and Richard Walker two strokes clear of Italy.

Corfield’s role in that victory heralded a successful 2004 in which he won the West of England Strokeplay Championship then finished runner-up in the Amateur Championship at St Andrews. The 22 year old from Somerset has been a key member of the England team since 2002 when he made his debut in the Home Internationals in Wales, and he is a former winner of the Lytham Trophy.

Lockerbie, also 22, was English champion in 2003 and earned his first full cap in that year’s Home Internationals. He went on to partner Michael Skelton to victory in the Juan Carlos Tailhade Cup in Argentina, while last year the Cumbrian finished runner-up to Richardson in the European Amateur in Sweden. The man from Penrith was England’s top scorer with four-and-a-half points in the Home Internationals at Prestwick.

A member of the 2005 Walker Cup squad, Lockerbie was in the party that visited the Chicago venue in preparation for this year’s match, and has also been to South Africa with England for Warm Weather Training.

This will be Richardson‘s first taste of the Sherry Cup. The 20 year old from Middlesex has starred in recent years at boys and senior levels, culminating in his victory in the Brabazon Trophy at West Lancs last May. In August, he became the first Englishman for 13 years to win the European Amateur when he triumphed in Sweden and he also represented GB&I in the St Andrews Trophy and England in the Home Internationals and the Eisenhower Trophy.

Richardson, who is currently with the Elite squad in Australia, teamed up with Corfield to finish second in the Juan Carlos Tailhade Cup in December and has already visited South Africa and America this year.

Wolstenholme has won the individual title in the Sherry Cup three times in the past five years, the last in 2003. The 44 year old from Leicestershire has already secured a win in 2005 with victory in the New South Wales Medal in Australia last month and recently competed in the Jones Cup.

England’s most capped player has lost none of his appetite and enthusiasm for competition at the highest level of the amateur game and has his sight set on a sixth Walker Cup appearance in Chicago in August.

The Sherry Cup is competed for over 72 holes with the best three cards each day counting towards the team event. The individual competition will run simultaneously with the European Nations Championship, the champion collecting a Gold Sherry Wine Trophy and the Amateur Masters Jacket. If the Championship ends in a tie, the teams involved will nominate one player to compete in a sudden death play-off.

Related Links

• http://www.englishgolfunion.org

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