Hokie Club2008 British Amateur ChampionshipTournament homepage TURNBERRY, Scotland -- Virginia Tech golfer Drew Weaver will tee off on Monday in the 2008 British Amateur Championship in defense of his victory in the 2007 event. Former teammate Jurrian van der Vaart will join the defending champion in the field of 288 players.
The 2008 British Amateur Championship will be played on the Ailsa and Kintyre Courses at Turnberry, Scotland, June 16-21. The British Amateur begins with two rounds of stroke play. The 64 lowest scores and ties over the 36 holes of stroke play will compete in match play, beginning Wednesday on the Ailsa course. Each match will consist of one round of 18 holes except the final which will be 36 holes.
Weaver, a rising senior from High Point, N.C., will tee off at 11:56 a.m., local time from the first tee of the Kintyre Course. He is grouped with Bjorn Akesson of Sweden and Paul Cutler of the United Kingdom. The trio will tee off in the second round from the first tee at the Ailsa Course at 7:22 a.m., on Tuesday.
Van der Vaart, who completed his collegiate career at the NCAA Championship in May, will tee off at 1:02 p.m., on Monday from the first tee of the Ailsa Course. He is grouped with Jonas Enander Hedin of Sweden and Joe Vickery of the United Kingdom. The group will tee off in the second round from the first tee of the Kintyre Course at 8:28 a.m., on Tuesday.
Weaver won the 2007 British Amateur Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Annes in Lancashire, England. He defeated Tim Stewart of Australia, 2 & 1, in the finals. With the victory, he became the first American to win the championship since Jay Sigel in 1979 and the last American to advance into the finals since Jim Holtgrieve in 1983. Weaver was one of just two Americans to advance to match play in 2007.
Van der Vaart warmed up for his appearance in the British Amateur with an impressive seventh-place finish at the St. Andrews Links Trophy Tournament at the Old Course at St. Andrews on June 6. He also tied for ninth place at the NCAA Men's Golf Championship in West Lafayette, Ind., on May 31.
The Turnberry Ailsa Course is among the rotation for the British Open Championship. The course is best known for the "Duel in the Sun" between the two golfing giants, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson in the 1977 Open Championship, the first ever played at Turnberry.
Results will be available on hokiesports - the notebook during the championship and at RandA.org.