UF's Horschel helps team USA to second place finish at WATC
Monday, October 20, 2008 | Men's Golf
Florida men's golfer Billy Horschel (Grant, Fla.) helped Team USA to a second-place finish at the 2008 World Amateur Team Championships over the weekend. Horschel finished at three-over par 293 in the four-round tournament, earning a share of 21st place.
Horschel shot rounds of 72 (-1) and 70 (-2) to open the tournament, and shot 74 (+2) and 77 (+5) over the final two rounds.
The team from Scotland took home the Eisenhower Trophy with a nine-stroke win over the Americans. The Scots entered the final day with a four-stroke lead and were comfortably on top of the leaderboard throughout the final round.
Although there is no individual recognition, American Rickie Fowler was the low scorer at 10-under-par 280.
The USA was vying for its 14th Eisenhower Trophy and had won the championship three of the last four times. The winning team receives custody of the Eisenhower Trophy for the ensuing two years and the players receive gold medals.
In the World Amateur, the team's two best individual scores count. Each country has three golfers competing. Fowler (plays collegiately at Oklahoma State), Horschel and Jamie Lovemark (Southern Cal) represented the U.S. All three golfers are collegiate All-Americans and were also members of the USA's winning 2007 Walker Cup squad.
Conducted by the International Golf Federation, which comprises the national governing bodies of golf in more than 110 countries, the World Amateur Team Championships are a biennial international amateur golf competition rotated among three geographic zones of the world: Asia-Pacific, American and European-African. This year's event had 68 entrants, the second-most in the history of the Eisenhower Trophy.
For more information and complete results visit www.internationalgolffederation.org and click on the WATC Scoring icon.
