Top amateur golfers from 11 countries are seeking to wrest the coveted Riversdale Cup from in-form South Australian and defending champion Jordan Sherratt next month.

The highly regarded Sherratt heads a list of 157 players announced today to tee off in the historic international amateur golf championship in Melbourne on March 5-8.
Sherratt goes into the 115-year-old tournament with the recent NEC Masters of the Amateur international tournament to his name.
Thirty international players from the USA, England, Scotland, France, Switzerland, New Zealand, China, Korea, Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore make up the field for the Cup which also includes Australia’s top ranked Royal & Ancient listed player Matt Jager, of Western Australia who is rated 11th in the world. Jager shared the lead at one stage in the Masters of the Amateur with Sherratt, before Sherratt went on to take the title for the first time from American Bud Cauley in the first
play-off hole. Jager finish fourth in the event, one stroke behind fellow Australian Keiran Pratt, from Victoria, who is also in the Cup field and who recently claimed the 2010 Lake Macquarie championship.

This year’s Riversdale Cup looks to be one of the most tightly contested in its history with all the players off a handicap of 1 or less for the 72-hole tournament.
The Cup is the second only to the Australian Men’s Amateur Championship on the R&A’s world ranking list and the winner is not only invited to play in the British Amateur Championship, but also gains points for entry into the European Amateur Championship and towards the Mark H McCormack Medal, which is presented annually by the R&A to the leading player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.

Sherratt set a course record 63 in taking out the Cup last year and claim his first major title before going on win the Canadian Barrett Amateur and being best placed
Australian in the inaugural Asian Amateur Championship when he tied for third. New Zealand’s top ranked amateur Ryan Fox, the son of former All Back, Grant Fox,
along with the talented Ben Campbell also of NZ; two-time Arizona state champion Peter Croonquist; England’s 2009 Strada Hampshire Open winner Neil Raymond; and
2007 British Boys’ championship runner-up Fraser Fotheringham, of Scotland are some of the notable players in this year’s Cup field.
Many of them will also line up in the Australian Men’s Amateur Foursome Championships to be played at Riversdale prior to the Cup on March 3.