Subang: Reigning champions Australia got down to work on Tuesday as they look to overcome a stern test at the 36th edition of the Asia-Pacific Ladies Invitational Golf Team Championship for the Queen Sirikit Cup (QSC), which begins tomorrow at Saujana Golf & Country Club.
The Young Mathildas claimed a major upset last year when they beat the mighty South Koreans by a single stroke at Sunrise Golf & Country Club in Chinese Taipei – earning their first Queen Sirikit Cup victory since 2001 and ending the Korean’s five-year domination in the championship.
However, the absence of world number one amateur Minjee Lee and former Australian junior open champion Su-Hyun Oh sees an experimental squad comprising of debutants Hannah Green, Shelly Shin and Cathleen Santoso in action this week – raising the stakes for a successful Aussie title defence.
Golf Australia High Performance Manager Matt Cutler, who is the team captain this week, admitted that new-look squad will have their job cut out for them, considering the strong line-ups put up by the other 12 Asia-Pacific nations participating this week.
“We had initially pencilled in Lee and Oh for this championship alongside Green but they received invitations to play in the Kraft Nabisco Championship over the weekend and had to miss this championship,” said Cutler.
“We would have loved to have them here as they were part of last year’s winning team but it was a great opportunity for them to experience a ladies’ Major first-hand and gives an opportunity for the other players in our line-up to rise up to the challenge,” he added, noting that the Queen Sirikit Cup is a top-priority event for Golf Australia, alongside the Nomura Cup and the World Amateur Team Championship.
“The field is quite open and we will find out a little bit of the strength of the teams after the opening round tomorrow but we’re confident of doing the best we can with the squad we have.”
Neighbours New Zealand are led by their national amateur champion Julianne Alvarez, who reckons that the Kiwis can spring a surprise or two on the favourites this week.
“We had a tournament (New Zealand Strokeplay) coming into this championship that gave us the opportunity to practise together and get the team spirit going. I compete often with my teammates (sisters Munchin and Wenyung Keh) and we get along well as a team, so it is going to be a fun week of golf,” said the 17-year-old from Wellington.
“Well, expectations are always there to do well but we like to go through our processes and that means focusing on what we can control and not that beyond us.
“The Bunga Raya course is a challenging layout that requires good course management with little margin for errors, so I’m confident that if we stick to good processes this week, it will eventually lead to good outcomes for us,” shared Alvarez, who is playing in her second Queen Sirikit Cup.
