Southland No1 Vaughan McCall will look to complete a rare double this week at the New Zealand amateur championship at Mount Maunganui.
The 20-year-old, who claimed the New Zealand strokeplay title by five shots three weeks ago at the Hastings Golf Club, is looking to become the first player to have their name engraved on both the St Andrews Salver (strokeplay) and NZ Amateur trophy for almost 25 years.
The last player to complete that achievement was Victorian Brad Hughes back in 1988.
McCall is excited about this week as he looks to back up his win in Hastings.
"There is no extra pressure on me. I'll be playing my own game all week, keeping it straight off the tee and look to do my scoring on the greens," said the Gore Golf Club member.
"It is nice to have people coming up to me and congratulating me on that win and it meant a lot to the people down in Southland so it was good to be able to share the win with them.
"This is a good test for me this week. Typically I am stronger as a strokeplay golfer than at matchplay but it should be a good challenge ahead of our trip to the UK where we play in a few matchplay events."
McCall was one of the standout performers from the Southland team last year who claimed the Interprovincial title for the first time in 61 years, comfortably accounting for Bay of Plenty in the final. He'll draw some confidence from that heading into this event.
"I was a bit rusty at the start [of the interprovincials] but I came right and played well in the last three matches that were pretty important. I am hoping to ride off some of that form.
"The golf course here is in mint condition - the greens are pure and the fairways are in great nick - I can't wait for this week to begin."
This is a landmark year for the championship as for the first time the tournaments (strokeplay and matchplay) are being played as stand-alone events to give the respective champions their time in the sun.
Dave Mangan, the national tournament manager at New Zealand Golf, believed this year's amateur was wide open with some of our more experienced players unable to attend due to international commitments.
"At the same time it's really evened out both fields and with the beauty of matchplay, where anyone can win on his or her day, we are in for an exciting week," Mangan said.
Despite Mathew Perry, Ben Campbell, Lydia Ko, Emily Perry and Chantelle Cassidy being away overseas, both fields are strong, especially the men's which includes Australian squad member Ryan McCarthy who will be looking to follow in Mat Jager's [2009, 2010 champion] footsteps as the last Australian winner of the NZ Amateur.
"Daniel Pearce and Fraser Wilkin have been in good form recently and Tyler Hodge will be buoyed by his recent Australian amateur boys championship win and show the senior guys a thing or two.
"The favourite though will be Vaughan McCall."
Leading Bay of Plenty contenders include in-form Omanu golfer Craig Hamilton, his winning national foursomes partner Sam Davis (Tauranga), 2010 national strokeplay winner Brad Kendall (Mt Maunganui) and Rotorua duo Landyn Edwards and Peter Lee.
It promises to be an exciting week at the Mount Maunganui Golf Club which is highly rated especially for its great greens.
The format for the tournament is two rounds of strokeplay in qualifying on the first two days, beginning tomorrow, with the top 32 making the NZ Amateur in a seeded draw. The Amateur is a knock-out matchplay contest with the 36-hole final to be contested on Sunday.