2004 World Amateur Team Championships

EISENHOWER TROPHY

28-31 October, Rio Mar CC

Rio Grande, Puerto Rico

Following are storylines outside the scoring on the golf course which may be of interest to you and your audiences:

CADDIE ANYONE?: All caddies for the championships are children from the Carvin School.

Puerto Rico does not have caddies because the golf is resort-based and always uses golf carts. All 250-plus of these kids have been given five training sessions about caddieing, golf and golf etiquette. They will pull wheeled carts/trolleys. They are bussed in at 5 a.m. and all of them remain on property until the conclusion of play. All the students are 100 percent bilingual. The school curriculum includes 100 hours of community service so for many of them, caddieing will count towards their hours of service, working closely with the United Way .

BRAZILIAN EXPERIENCE : Brazilian women's captain Elizabeth Nickhorn holds the record for most appearances in the Espirito Santo competition with 13. This was her second experience as team captain. On the men's side, Roberto Gomez (see below) will be playing in his record-tying 11th championship. Lorenzo Silva of Italy, Alexis Godillot of France and Tetsuo Sakata of Japan have also played in 11 Eisenhower competitions.

FIRST-TIME COMPETITORS : Three new teams will play in the Eisenhower championship: Barbados, Cayman Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands .

Players and Captains Storylines (alphabetically by nation )

Jarrod Lyle of Australia was diagnosed with leukemia in May of 1999, has fought the disease and hopes to be in full remission later this year. Through his battle, he has been befriended by PGA Tour pro Robert Allenby. As a good luck charm, Lyle wears “Luke the Duck” badges on all his caps from Challenge, a cancer support network in Australia.

James Nitties of Australia was the runner-up at the Western Amateur (reigning U.S. Amateur and U.S. Amateur Public Links champion Ryan Moore defeated him) in the USA this summer and has a goal of playing in the World Series of Poker as well as becoming a professional pool player.

Under the supervision of team captain Roger Hunt, who is a cinema operator at home, the Australian team spent a week practicing in Florida with Australian pro Robert Allenby.

Darren Boardley of Barbados is likely the youngest competitor at age 15. He was born in England and began playing golf at age 11. He has also lived in Saudi Arabia where he was a junior swimming champion (breaststroke) for three years.

James Johnson of Barbados currently holds the title of best individual amateur in the Caribbean – he has won the last two Caribbean Amateur Championships as well as the Barbados Open in 2002-2004. A graduate of East Tennessee State in the USA, he is dyslexic and has lived in England (five years) and the USA (seven years).

Belgian captain Thierry Noteboom, in addition to competing in handball and track (athletics), has climbed to the summit of Mount Blanc four times (1979, 1980, 1982, 1990).

Roberto Gomez of Brazil is playing in his record-tying 11th Eisenhower Championship. He is a four-time Brazilian Amateur champion and a two-time South American Amateur winner.

James Lepp of Canada was a member of the winning team at the 2003 Copa de las Americas at Rio Mar C.C.

Manuel Jimenez of Costa Rica is playing in his ninth Eisenhower Trophy. He is the chairman of La Nacion S.A., a newspaper in Costa Rica .

Philip Jacobsen of Denmark is the youngest captain in the competition at age 18. He is the 2004 European Amateur Youth champion as well as the 2003 European Amateur Boys champion.

Juan Campusano of the Dominican Republic plays cross-handed.

Otto Guerrero of the Dominican Republic is a sports broadcaster, whose only career hole in one is at the Teeth of the Dog course in his home country.

England's Gary Wolstenholme could be the most traveled player in the field. He has won numerous golf titles in the United Kingdom, China, United Arab Emirates, Finland, Spain, South Africa and the USA . He has also competed in two Open Championships as well as the 1992 and 2004 Masters and professional events on the PGA and European Tours. He is playing in his fifth Eisenhower and has played on five GB&I Walker Cup teams with a 17-9-8 record.

James Heath of England is the reigning English Amateur champion and was the runner-up at the 2004 European Amateur.

Enrique Arenas of Guatemala joins his mother, Beatriz, and sister, Maria Christina, in competing in the 2004 WATCs.

Stuart Murray of Hong Kong, China, is an operations and supply chain director in his business life. He was transferred to Hong Kong from his native Australia to work on the design of the new airport.

Alec Pettigrew of Hong Kong, China, is the playing captain in 2004. He is the CEO of YES Golf Asia Pacific LTD and he was voted Hong Kong Entrepreneur of the Year in 2001.

Italy is represented by siblings Francesco (age 22) and Edoardo (age 23) Molinari.

Stuart Wilson of Scotland is a shop manager for a retail golf outlet. He is the reigning British Amateur champion and was the low amateur at the 2004 Open Championship at Royal Troon. He played on the victorious 2003 GB&I Walker Cup team.

Ryan Lang of Zimbabwe is the owner of a company that manufactures construction equipment.