BATON ROUGE – David Fay, the former executive director of the United States Golf Association and 2011 Spirit International USA Team Captain, decided that all four of his competitors on this year’s U.S. team for the Nov. 2-5 Spirit International Amateur Golf Championship would be national champions.
Part of that foursome will be LSU’s defending NCAA champion, Austin Ernst, who will join good friend Emily Tubert of Arkansas on the women’s side and they will be joined on the men’s portion of the team by Kelly Kraft of Southern Methodist and Nathan Smith of Pittsburgh, Pa.
The event will be played at the Whispering Pines Golf Club outside Houston, Texas.
In addition, another LSU player, freshman Madelene Sagstrom, who has posted impressive rounds in her first two events as a collegiate, will represent her home country of Sweden in the four day event.
Ernst and Tubert, like Ernst a sophomore at Arkansas, have shown their chemistry as Tubert caddied for Ernst in the LSU sophomore’s run to the national semifinal match of the U.S. Women’s Amateur in August. Ernst is from Seneca, S.C., while Tubert is from Burbank, Calif. Tubert won the 2010 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links.
Kraft won the 2011 United States Amateur Championship, while Smith, at age 33, the oldest member of the team, has won the United States Mid-Amateur in 2003, 2009 and 2010.
The 2011 Spirit International features 80 participants from 20 countries representing six continents. The format of play for the competition is Four-Ball Stroke Play. The men’s and women’s Four-Ball score is combined for the International Team competition. There is also a separate men’s and women’s team competition.
The host course for the Spirit is located 80 minutes north of Houston, in Trinity, Texas. Whispering Pines is listed in America’s Top 100 Courses.
More information on the tournament can be found at www.thespiritgolf.com.