KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand women's golf team are quietly confident they can achieve their best finish for two decades at the Espirito Santo amateur teams world championship starting today in Adelaide.
Canterbury's Dana Kim and United States-based Natasha Krishna and Cathryn Bristow are chasing success against 53 other nations.
New Zealand teams have produced two consecutive top-10 finishes in the Espirito Santo after a string of middling performances, and are keen to build on a seventh placing in South Africa two years ago.
It may be Bristow who takes the lead. Entering her final year at the University of Oregon, Bristow made her international debut for New Zealand in the Queen Sirikit Cup this year.
She finished as the fifth leading individual and helped drag her team up to fifth overall after a slow start.
"This is the ultimate honour for me," she said of the world event.
"It was an incredible experience to make my debut in the Queen Sirikit but to represent your country at the major world event is unbelievable.
"I am playing every day and in a tournament every second week, so I am getting a lot of tough competition.
"There are a number of girls here who are in the US college system and so I think I have an understanding of what we are getting into.
"And I am used to the big and fast greens here in Adelaide because we play on these types of courses a lot."
New Zealand coach Susan Farron said her team were well prepared, after playing on the Grange Golf Club course in Adelaide for the Australian amateur and the South Australian strokeplay this year.
The US have dominated the Espirito Santo, winning 13 times, although five different nations have won the title in the past 10 years.
The Espirito Santo, decided over four rounds of strokeplay with the best two of three scores counting, ends on Saturday.
- NZPA