Columnist Peter Benton: U.S.’ Mickelson, Toms to play in World Cup

Peter Benton

Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2002 | 9:36 a.m.

Peter Benton's golf column appears Wednesday.

The 18 seeded nations for the 2002 World Golf Championship EMC World Cup were recently announced, with the No. 1 seeded country -- the United States -- being represented by Phil Mickelson and David Toms, the second- and sixth-ranked players in the official World Golf Rankings.

This year's EMC World Cup will be played Dec. 10-15 at Vista Vallarta's Nicklaus Course in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and is the final of four World Golf Championships contested in 2002.

Players qualified for this year's event by virtue of their standings in the Official World Golf Ranking. The highest ranked available players representing 18 countries automatically qualified for the tournament. They were joined in the field by the host country, Mexico.

The remaining five teams, Switzerland, Myanmar and Singapore, along with Venezuela and Columbia, earned places in the event via recently concluded qualifying tournaments in Malaysia and Mexico.

Following are the other 17 seeded nations in the $3 million EMC World Cup, which offers $1 million to the winning team:

No. 2 seed, Fiji, Vijay Singh -- Dinesh Chand; (3.) Ireland, Padraig Harrington -- Paul McGinley; (4.) New Zealand, Michael Campbell -- Craig Perks; (5.) Argentina, Angel Cabrera -- Eduardo Romero; (6.) Japan, Shigeki Maruyama -- Toshi Izawa; (7.) Canada, Mike Weir -- Ian Leggatt; (8.) Sweden, Niclas Fasth -- Carl Pettersson; (9.) England, Justin Rose -- Nick Faldo; (10.) Australia, Adam Scott -- Craig Parry; (11.) Scotland, Paul Laurie -- Andrew Oldcorn; (12.) Korea, K.J. Choi -- Hur Suk-ho; (13.) Denmark, Anders Hansen -- Soren Hansen; (14.) France, Thomas Levet -- Raphael Jacquelin; (15.) South Africa, Tim Clark -- Rory Sabbatini; (16,) Wales, Ian Woosnam -- Bradley Dredge; (17.) Trinadad and Tobago, Stephen Ames -- Robert Ames, and (18.) Germany, Alex Cejka -- Sven Struver.

In last year's event, played at the Taiheiy Club in Gotemba City, Japan, the South African team of Ernie Els and Retief Goosen won in a playoff over the teams from the U.S., Denmark and New Zealand after the four teams had tied with 264's.

Lanny and Kryce Higa prevailed in the girls 13-17 with a 59. Dan and Chloe Nelson followed at 65 while in third with 66 was Tom and Mandi Incorvaia.

Jack Sheehan and heir, J.P., were victors in the boys 6-12 with a 33. Tom and Zach Carroll's 34 took second, and sharing third with 38's were the pairings of Fred and Damian Coughlin plus Gordon and Belcher Cameron.

Girls 6-12 winners were Bob and Alex Borcherts and their 36. Dan and Julia Graham placed second at 37, while third went to the John and Courtney Sunstrum team with 38.