Former Masters champion Billy Casper will be the honorary captain for the 16th annual Georgia Cup match Thursday at the Golf Club of Georgia in Alpharetta. The match features reigning U.S. Amateur champion Steven Fox against reigning British Amateur champion Alan Dunbar.
Former competitors in the event include Matt Kuchar, who won the first event in 1998, Sergio Garcia, Ryan Moore, Ricky Barnes, Edoardo Molinari, Matteo Manassero, Peter Uihlein and Richie Ramsay. The exhibition, which begins at 1:05 p.m., is contested the week prior to the Masters, where both competitors have earned an invitation.
Fox, a senior at UT-Chattanooga, won the U.S. Amateur in dramatic fashion last summer. He was down two holes with two to play against Michael Weaver, but won the final two and made a winning birdie on the 19th hole.
Dunbar, a native of Northern Ireland, beat Matthias Schwab of Austria 1-up in the British Amateur final at Royal Troon.
The U.S. Amateur champion has won four of the last six competitions and leads the series 8-7. Bryden Macpherson, a British Amateur champion who played at Georgia, won last year’s Georgia Cup.
Casper is a three-time major champion who played at the Golf Club of Georgia when it hosted a Champions Tour event.
Proceeds of the Georgia Cup benefit the Folds of Honor Foundation and the Georgia State Golf Association Foundation.
On the tours: Augusta's Charles Howell III made a spirited run to crack the top 50 of the World Golf Ranking and earn a place in the Masters, but came up just short. Howell closed with a 66 and tied for 10th last week at the Shell Houston Open and climbed three spots to No. 54. He needed a fourth-place finish to gain another trip to Augusta National. He is not in the field for this week's Valero Texas Open, where a win gets any non-qualifier in the Masters field.
“It was a good effort, but unfortunately good efforts don’t get that invitation to Augusta,” Howell said after the round. “I’m not going to go down the road of disappointment. I played good. I would love to be in the golf tournament; so would 300 million other golfers.”
Howell said he would watch the Masters next week, but added, “It’s just horrible to watch on TV, to be honest.” …
Duluth’s Stewart Cink was in the final group on Sunday for the second time this year, but wound up in a tie for 6th after a final-round 70. It was Cink’s second top-10 finish of the season and his best showing since a tie for sixth at the 2009 WGC Bridgestone Invitational.
Cink said he was able to take away some positives from the performance. “Little bits and pieces of being in contention and performing fairly well under the gun when time is expiring,” he said. “When you’re not in that position for a while you kind of forget what it feels like when the juices really flow and sometimes you kind of wonder if you could do it again.” …
Former PGA champion Steve Elkington is the latest commitment for the Greater Gwinnett Championship, April 19-21 at the TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth. …
No. 1-ranked Stacy Lewis is the favorite in this week’s Kraft Nabisco Championship, the LPGA’s first major of the year. Lewis won the event in 2011 by outdueling then-No. 1 Yani Tseng, who is coming off an embarrassing situation at the Kia Classic. She overslept and missed her tee time for the pro-am, which meant she could not compete in the tournament.
Many eyes will be on 15-year-old amateur Lydia Ko, who became the youngest winner in LPGA history last year when she won the 2012 CN Canadian Women’s Open.
Etc.: Martin Jaramillo of Bradenton, Fla., won the boys division and Lauren Stephenson of Lexington, S.C., won the girls division of the American Junior Golf Association's TaylorMade-Adidas Golf Junior All-Star at Chateau Elan. Among Georgians, Benjamin Shipp of Duluth tied for third, Spencer Ralston of Gainesville tied for seventh and S.M. Lee of Buford tied for 10th. Payton Schanen of Alpharetta was the top Georgia girl, tying for sixth.
