Golf: Koh keen to return to action

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Tae Koh has been waiting all year for this one.

The 19-year-old Kiwi has had his eye on the Eisenhower World Amateur Team Championship in Japan since he claimed the Australian Amateur Championship title in January and it finally gets under way on Wednesday.

Koh was a shock Australian amateur champion when he triumphed 6 and 5 over Western Australian Curtis Luck in Adelaide to become the third New Zealander, and first since Michael Campbell in 1992, to win the tournament.

It kick-started a string of good results for Koh, who had previously never won a national title, and he stormed to a runaway lead on New Zealand Golf's amateur order of merit.

He also came close to being the first person to win the Australian and New Zealand amateur titles in the same year before he was edged in the Kiwi event by Eisenhower Trophy team-mate Joshua Munn.

Koh and Munn will be joined by Southland's Vaughan McCall in New Zealand's three-strong team in Japan.

"At the start of the year, this was one of my biggest goals, to make the team," Koh said of the Eisenhower. "To make the team is a big honour.

"We all know it's a huge event. The people who have played in it are pretty much the who's who in golf."

Rickie Fowler, Ryan Moore and Billy Horschel are some of the PGA Tour regulars who have performed well at the biennial teams tournament in the past decade.

New Zealand won it in 1992 with Phil Tataurangi - who was the leading individual - Campbell, Stephen Scahill and Grant Moorhead. They were later named supreme Halberg Award winners.

"It's still golf, so you try to do the best you can," Koh said. "You try not to get caught up with all the prestige. You can reflect on it after."

More than 60 countries will compete in this year's Eisenhower Trophy, which will be contested in a strokeplay format at the Karuizawa Golf Club in Nagano. A team's two best scores from each round count towards their tally.

The courses being used are not known for their length, which should help Koh, given accuracy is his calling card.

"You've got to be straight and I think it will suit me," he said. "I haven't played in Japan before so I'm looking forward to it. But I think it might help the straighter players and a good short game doesn't hurt."

Koh intends turning professional at the end of next year and the Manukau Golf Club member will get a taste of mixing it alongside some of the world's best professionals this summer courtesy of his Australian Amateur Championship victory.

He has earned a start in the Australian Open in Sydney in November, and his lead in the domestic order of merit should see him included in the field for the New Zealand Open in the New Year. APNZ