Scotland conquers Europe

10 July 2009 00:00
Scotland has added the European Amateur Team Championship crown to the World Amateur Team Championship title they won in Australia last year.

Competing at Conwy, the Scottish team of Gavin Dear, Wallace Booth, Michael Stewart, Paul O'Hara and Ross Kellett proved too strong for England in the final, eventually running out 5-2 winners.

'For a small nation, it is a pretty big achievement,' said Kellett. 'Winning the world title last year was great but to finish it off with a European win just caps it off.

'It's unbelievable to be European Champions,' added O'Hara. 'At the start of the week it was not looking that good because we just scraped into the stroke play stages, but we were confident we were good players and could come through - the last three days the guys have played really well.'

Meanwhile, Canada's Nick Taylor has extended his lead at the top of the WAGRanking by winning the Salahee Players Championship in Sammamish, Washington.

Competing in his first tournament since finishing as the low amateur at the US Open, Taylor holed from 40 feet on the 17th and from 20 feet on the 18th to take the title by one shot from Australia's Daniel Nisbet.

Taylor remains at WAGR Number One while Nisbet, 18, jumps 15 places to WAGRank 61.

Elsewhere, the USA's David Chung produced an outstanding performance at the North & South Amateur held last week at Pinehurst 7,342-yard No. 2 course.

Stanford University sophomore, Chung, defeated the University of South Carolina's Wes Brown to join the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Curtis Strange and Davis Love III as a winner of the event.

Chung moves up 121 places as a result of the victory to WAGRank 68. Bryan is up 38 to 22nd in the Ranking.

Source: WAGR