Superb Field Lines Up For Lytham Trophy
Kong, Switzerland, Portugal, the Czech
Republic, the Netherlands and Turkey.
Incredibly, Shinkwin, who won the
recent Hampshire Hog at North Hants
(see below) only got into the field as a late
replacement. His handicap was + 2.0 when
he entered and all players off worse than
+ 2. 1 were originally balloted out of the
elite 144-man field.
The backmarker is Germany’s Marcel
Schneider, from Baden-Württemberg, who
played alongside Trappel in the European
team at last week’s Bonallack Trophy and
who plays off + 5. 2. The German will play
alongside the Austrian and Gavin Samuels
(Leighton Buzzard) in the first two rounds.
Schneider shot to international prominence earlier this year when he won the
Australian Amateur Championship at Woodlands Golf Club in Melbourne to become the
first international winner of that event since
Norwegian Anders Kristiansen in 2008.
Liu is also well known in amateur circles because back in the summer of 2010
he superseded a certain Tiger Woods as
the youngest ever winner of the US Junior
Amateur Championship by beating Justin
Thomas by 4& 2 in the final at the age of 14
years, 11 months and 15 days.
Trappel won the European Amateur title
last summer by closing with a 2-under-par
70 to tie Steven Brown on 10-under-par 278
and then defeating his English rival by one
shot in the subsequent three-hole play-off.
The win gave Trappel an exemption into
this year’s Open Championship at Lytham
and he has already made an exploratory
trip to the Lancashire course alongside a
European Amateur champion
Manuel Trappel heads a superb field
at this week’s Lytham Trophy at Royal
Lytham & St Annes. Trappel, from Austria,
who represented Europe in last week’s Sir
Michael Bonallack Trophy in Portugal, and
is already qualified for this year’s Open
Championship at Lytham, is joined by
former US Junior champion Jim Liu, 2011
Brabazon Trophy winner Neil Raymond,
plus a strong contingent of Raymond’s
fellow English squad members, including
the in-form Callum Shinkwin.
Walker Cup player Alan Dunbar, from
Rathmore, leads the Irish challenge, while
there is a strong Scottish contingent includ-
ing Fraser McKenna, Paul Shields, Brian
Soutar, Jack McDonald and Graham Gordon.
Other entrants are coming from as far afield
as Finland, Italy, Germany, France, Hong
group of Austrian journalists.
Shinkwin gave his hopes of gaining a full
England cap a timely boost with an impres-
sive three-stroke victory over Martin Young
and Jerome Titlow in the Hampshire Hog
at North Hants Golf Club.
