The Metropolitan Golf Association has announced the members of their eight-man amateur team which will compete against a similar team from the Golfing Union of Ireland in the 5th Governor Hugh L. Carey Challenge Cup Matches at the Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale, NY on October  7-8.  The Carey Cup Matches are named for former New York State Governor Hugh L. Carey who founded the event as a means of stimulating sportsmanship and goodwill between the two countries.  It was inaugurated in 1996 at Hudson National Golf Club in Croton-On-Hudson, NY, and since then has alternated between the two countries bi-annually.

 

Heading the MGA team as honorary captain will be the MGA’s immediate past president, Cornelius E. DeLoca, of Ridgewood CC.  The following players have been selected to represent the MGA: the team’s playing captain, Allan Small, 52, of Fairmount Country Club, twice runner-up in the Ike Championship; Andrew Svoboda, 23, of Winged Foot Golf Club, the 2003 Met Open champion, 2002 Met Amateur runner-up, and 1997 MGA Junior winner; Peter Zurkow, 50, of Quaker Ridge Golf Club, quarterfinalist in the 1998 Met Amateur and a five-time Quaker Ridge Club champion; Michael Quagliano, 17, of Knollwood Country Club, 2003 MGA Junior champion and Met Amateur finalist, the youngest player ever in Carey Cup competition; Peter Meurer, 46, of Silver Lake, winner of the 2002 MGA Public Links Championship; Adam Fuchs, 22, of Hamlet-Wind Watch, semi-finalist in the 2001 U.S. Amateur Public Links and low amateur in the 2002 Met Open; Patrick Pierson, 39, of Minisceongo Golf Club, the 2002 Rockland County Amateur champion; and Mark Thompson, 35, of Plandome Country Club, quarter-finalist in the 2002 Met Amateur Championship.  

 

The Irish team, captained by Mark Gannon, includes the following:  Clancy Bowe, 19, of Tramore Golf Club, the Boys Home Internationals champion 2000-2002; Mark Campbell, 23, of Stackstown Golf Club, 1999 champion of the South of Ireland; Darren Crowe, 22, of Dunmurry Golf Club, well experienced in international youth competition; John Foster, 27, of Ballyclare Golf Club, the 1998 South of Ireland champion; Brian McElhinney, 21, of North West Golf Club, winner of the European Individual Amateur Championship and North of Ireland Championship in 2003; Michael McGeady, 25, of the City of Derry Golf Club, who has represented Ireland several times in international competition; Mark O’Sullivan, 22, of Galway Golf Club, winner of the 2003 Irish Amateur Close Championship; and Niall Turner, 20, of the Muskerry Golf Club, a member of Ireland’s team for the European Boys Team Championship in 2001.

 

The format for the Carey Cup is similar to the Walker Cup and consists of Fourball, Foursome, and Singles matches over two days.  The MGA captured the inaugural Cup in 1996, and the GUI has won the last three renewals, in 1998 at the new Links at Portmarnock outside Dublin, in 1999 at the Maidstone Club in East Hampton, NY, and again in 2001 at the historic Portmarnock Golf Club.  Two previous competitions between the two teams, in 1990 at Metedeconk National Golf Club in Jackson, NJ and at the Waterville Links in Ireland in 1991, were split.

 

The actual competition will be preceded on October 2 by the Carey Cup Am-Am tournament, also at Quaker Ridge.  The Am-Am will benefit the MGA Foundation’s junior golf and educational program.  Through groundbreaking initiatives like its Golfworks student interns program and the First Tee facility at the Mosholu Golf Course, the MGA Foundation uses golf as a vehicle to have a positive influence on thousands of deserving young people each year.  

 

Quaker Ridge is one of the great A.W. Tillinghast gems in the Metropolitan Area, consistently ranked in the top 30 in the United States by Golf Digest and top 100 worldwide by Golf Magazine.  Quaker Ridge is known for the 1936 Met Open, which introduced winner Byron Nelson to the golfing world, for patriarch William Rice Hochster, after whom one of the leading stroke-play amateur tournaments of the year is named, and for its many challenging par 4’s.  The sixth and seventh holes form one of the most potent back-to-back punches in the region, while the 11th, with a stream meandering up the left side before crossing in front of the green, is equally picturesque and foreboding.

 

The Carey Cup Matches are open to the public and free of charge.

                       

For more information, contact: Jeanne McCooey or Kate Keller at 914-347-4653 or visit www.mgagolf.org