Australian amateur golf is firing on all fronts and many,
including some of the world’s best, are predicting one of the golden era to be
holding the Stonehaven Cup come Sunday.

Two amateurs have already won on the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of
Australasia this season; West Australian Curtis Luck won the WA Open in May and
Victorian Brett Coletta won the Isuzu Queensland Open in October which he
followed with a runner-up at the NSW Open last week.

Knowing all too well about how the younger generation can
dominate the game, Jordan Spieth, a two time major champion at 23 years of age,
certainly believes an amateur can win the Emirates Australian Open this week.

"A couple of them have already won
Professional events within the past year. I don’t see a difference in them
being able to come in here and do the same," said Spieth.

"With the calibre of the amateur
golf in Australia, you put an (a) next to their name, all that means is they’re
not going to get paid. 

"It doesn’t mean there’s going to
be a difference in performance this week whatsoever."

Spieth, a former Australian Open champion is competing in
the tournament for a third consecutive year.

For the first two rounds he will play alongside Luck, who
has won the US Amateur and Asia-Pacific Amateur this year, and he makes his
national Open debut this week.

"It will be
really exciting.  I’m very happy with the
pairing; it’s going to be cool. I guess he’s got a trip to Augusta coming up,
which will be a lot of fun and I’m sure we’ll chat a bit about that," added
Spieth, who is viewing Luck as genuine competition.

"If we’re in contention or Curtis
is in contention, I’m not going to think that this is a walk in the park.

"Instead I’m going to think, he’s
going to play very fearless and it actually could be more difficult."

An amateur hasn’t won the Australian Open since Aaron
Baddeley in 1999, the third member of the marquee pairing; Geoff Ogilvy
remembers that surprise victory well.

"It was
surprising when Badds won. Even to us, we knew how good he was and it was still
kind of a surprise.  There was still
quite a separation between the best amateur and the Pros who were winning a
tournament like this," said Ogilvy, who doesn’t think amateurs winning
Pro tournament is a surprise anymore.

"The gap is really only in
experience, not in skill now – which is still big, but their skills are
probably almost better. Some of these guys swing it great, they hit it
great.  They’re almost Pros now before
they are Pros. 

"The scores I keep seeing show up,
like last week (NSW Open) obviously there was Brett Coletta, he nearly won.
He’s a great player too. So, it would be less of a surprise than it was in 99,
I would say."

Ogilvy, who watched Luck win the US Amateur on TV wants an
up close look at the West Australian’s game. He will get that when they tee off
together at 7.10am on Thursday.

"Curtis will be fun; he looks like
a great player. I don’t think I’ve seen him hit it except on TV, but he’s
obviously dominating amateur golf," added Ogilvy.

"He’s in the Masters twice. That’s
a hard thing to do for anybody, a double exemption in the Masters. So, I’m
excited to play with him, it will be great."

The Emirates Australian Open will tee off on Thursday at the
Royal Sydney Golf Club.