KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand women's golf team are feeling right at home for the Espirito Santo amateur teams world championship starting in Adelaide tomorrow.
Coach Susan Farron said yesterday that excellent preparation in South Australia over the past two years had her team treating Adelaide as a second home.
A record 54 teams will contest the championship being played on the West and East courses of Grange Golf Club, a links course on the South Australian coast.
The trio of Dana Kim and United States-based Cathryn Bristow and Natasha Krishna are well versed with the course, comfortable with its surrounds and the city of Adelaide.
Krishna was the second leading individual in the 2006 Queen Sirikit Cup on the neighbouring Royal Adelaide course while the team also competed in the Australian amateur and South Australian championships at The Grange this year.
"Often when we head overseas to a world championship we are in totally foreign surroundings, different style of course, different weather, different environment," Farron said. "This time we know the course very well and enjoy playing here. We know Adelaide well and the team are very comfortable with everything. That is a big factor."
They had a shortened practice yesterday with fierce winds ripping through the course.
"That's different to what we have ever had here. Certainly there's always breeze on the coast but it's been good to sample just what this place can throw at you."
Krishna, 19, believes her US college experience has made her a much more mature athlete. The Aucklander is entering her senior year at the University of Las Vegas Nevada, after recording a win as a freshman and four top-20 performances in a solid sophomore year.
"I love it. I enjoy my independence and because college life is very busy mixing academics with golf, I have had to become very organised with my time management," she said.
"I am playing or practising golf every day but I think it is that I am now more mature and more rounded as a person that will make me a better golfer and better able to handle the challenge of a world championship.
"I enjoy this course. I have always liked linksy courses and I enjoyed some good success at Royal Adelaide two years ago."
New Zealand have finished in the top 10 on 12 occasions since the biennial competition began in 1964.
Their best was a runners-up spot in Switzerland in 1982 and again in Christchurch in 1990.
- NZPA
