Dottie, 12, youngest to don RP colors

A combination of young and veteran players raring to showcase their shotmaking skills against the world’s best will banner the Philippines’ campaign in this year’s World Amateur Team Championships slated Oct. 18-21 for the ladies and Oct. 26-29 for the men’s competition in Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Dottie Ardina, whose six victories abroad this year speak well of the caliber of the player barely in her teens, gets her baptism of fire in a tournament of this magnitude although she is expected to draw attention from the competing field, being the youngest Filipino player at 12 and among the 153 players listed in the Espirito Santo Trophy.

Ardina, who won the Junior World crown in the 11-12 division last July, the Indonesian Ladies Open plum last month and just recently the Hong Kong Open title, joins fellow Junior World champion Cyna Rodriguez and reigning Philippine Ladies Open titlist Debbie de Villa in the RP ladies squad out to improve the joint 18th place finish by the team of Jayvie Agojo, Lora Roberto and Anya Tanpinco in Puerto Rico in 2004.

Rodriguez, playing out of Ecole de Mont Michel who also won the 2006 Asean Junior Open crown, is 14 years old while De Villa, a junior at the School of Tomorrow who was runner-up in this year’s Malaysian Ladies Amateur Open, is 16, thus making this year’s squad the youngest ever to banner the national team to the biennial tournament which lured a record 126 countries, including 51 in the Espirito Santo Trophy (ladies).

"This will be an entirely different competition for Dottie, Cyna and Debbie. But they are ready," said national team coach Bong Lopez, also the man at the helm of the 23-player pool training under the ICTSI golf program.

Marvin Dumandan, and winner of four events this year, including the North County Orange Amateur crown in California, heads the men’s team composed of veteran internationalist Jay Bayron and former Singapore Am Open champion and Puerto Rico veteran Michael Bibat.

The RP men’s squad will be hardpressed to improve the country’s joint 23rd finish the last time out as it will be pitted against 75 countries, led by the fancied United States, which is gunning for a record four-straight crown in the Eisenhower Cup.

Dumandan and company will also try to at least match Juvic Pagunsan’s impressive joint fifth place finish in the individual competition of the event slated at the wind-raked Stellenbosch Golf Club.

The Philippines finished tied for 18th in the Espirito Santo Trophy in Puerto Rico with Agojo sharing 12th place in the individual event ruled by Paraguayan Julieta Granada.

The RP ladies leave for South Africa tomorrow hoping to get the feel of the par-72 De Zalze Golf Club layout built on the foothills of the majestic Stellenbosch Mountains on the banks of the Eerste River.

The men’s team will depart on Oct. 19.

Sweden is the defending champion in Espirito Santo Trophy with the US, Canada, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Colombia, Spain, Germany and New Zealand out to foil its back-to-back bid, including the youthful but talent-laden RP squad.