Peter Williams: Kiwi amateur success is now long overdue

This week marks the start of the most important fortnight in New Zealand's biennial amateur golf calendar. The World Teams Championships start on Wednesday night (NZT) when Sarah Nicholson, Sharon Ahn and Natasha Krishna tee off among 50 other nations competing for the Espirito Santo Trophy. The following week, Josh Geary, Mark Purser and James Gill compete with 74 other teams for the Eisenhower Trophy.

The tournaments are at Stellenbosch in South Africa's Western Cape district and, according to men's coach James Kupa, the venues could hardly suit the Kiwi teams better: "They're parkland courses, 45 minutes inland from Cape Town, not too long and with kikuyu fairways and bent grass greens, it shouldn't be that different from playing in New Zealand."

Kupa, who leaves with his team on Thursday, is enthusiastic about the chances of both line-ups. These are the first world championships since Women's Golf NZ and the New Zealand Golf Association amalgamated so for the first time, there has been a co-ordinated approach to team preparation.

High Performance manager Gaylene Eyre had the players and coaches together three times in recent months, most recently at the Taranaki Open two weeks ago.

Matters beyond the technical, like such as developing a team culture, course management and in-competition nutrition and hydration, have all been thoroughly canvassed.

The ever-increasing international spread of golf means these world championships are the largest yet, although the number of potential winning nations is less than a dozen.

This New Zealand women's team, a trio of contrasting styles from Nicholson's power hitting to 15-year-old Ahn's exquisite accuracy and Krishna's delicate short game, is potentially a top five finisher. But while standards in this country have lifted, it's highly likely the bar has also been raised around the rest of the world, particularly in Asia, Europe and South America.

Kupa says he has "good, warm, fuzzy feelings" about his men's team. All have played extensively overseas in the past three months, all have multiple tournament wins this year, they all know each other well, and most significantly, each wants to be the top player in the team.

The coach says they played the Taranaki Open under Eisenhower rules, with the two best scores counting each day. "As a team, we were 20 under par for the tournament, on one of the best courses in New Zealand. That tells me these young men could be something special.

"Geary has the best short game I've ever seen in an amateur anywhere, Purser's swing is technically perfect and Gill has a heart like Phar Lap. They're all really good friends but competition between them is fierce."

In 1990 and 1992, the men's team finished second and then first in the Eisenhower. The women were second and third in the Espirito Santo those same years.

A return to those world class heady heights is considerably overdue.