BATON ROUGE – Sweden, with playing captain Ingrid Lindblad of LSU, will try to hold on to the Espirito Santo Trophy it won a year ago in France when the 2023 World Amateur Team Championships begin Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.
With Abu Dhabi being nine hours ahead of the United States, play will actually begin in the first round of the four-day event at approximately 9:30 p.m. CT on Tuesday.
Lindblad, the No. 1 Amateur in the World, and her teammates won the gold medal a year ago at the La Golf National outside of Paris in the first return of the event since 2018. With the 2020 event cancelled by the pandemic, there is only a one-year break between events this time around.
Sweden’s win in 2022 was its third in the history of the event. The United States, the silver medalists a year ago, has won the event 14 times.
Lindblad, coming in off her win the Stage II Epson Tour qualifying, and Meja Ortengren return for Sweden in this year’s event, joined by Kajsa Arwefjall in the play three, count 2 scoring event over 72 holes.
Donegan will be part of the Irish team taking part in the event. Donegan has been a solid present for the Tigers since joining the team prior to the 2022-23 season from Indiana and made a mark for herself by making the cut in the U.S. Women’s Open last summer at Pebble Beach.
Sara Byrne and Beth Coulter are the two other playing members of the Irish squad.
In all 36 countries will take part in the event with the United States team consisting of well-known amateurs Megan Schofill, Rachel Kuehn and Anna Davis.
Donegan tees off in one of the early groups at 6:52 a.m. Abu Dhabi time which is 9:52 p.m. Tuesday night in the Central time zone. Lindblad had an 11:22 tee time there which translates to 2:22 a.m. CT Wednesday.
The event is being held at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club which will play to par 72 and a distance of just over 6,400 yards.