BERMUDA'S top amateurs hope to rise to the occasion later this month when they take on the best the game has to offer at the 2002 World Amateur Team Championships being staged halfway across the world in Malaysia from October 24-27.

In fact before they turned professional, some of the top stars in the golf world today proved their worth at the biennial tournament which is played for the Eisenhower trophy - players like Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw, Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard and David Duval.

Bermuda will be represented by amateur veterans Nick Mansell and Tim Carr and they will be joined by Bermuda's rising star Jarryd Dillas who is still in his teens.

And Mansell has no doubts about the task facing them at the championships which are being played at two courses at the Saujana Resort which advertises itself as "Malaysia's premier golf club".

While the Bermuda trio will be battling the best amateurs on the planet, Mansell said they will also have another fight on their hands - that of fatigue. Besides the long flights to Malaysia (Bermuda to London and then London to Malaysia), Mansell said they will have to counter jet lag when they arrive, and then there will be the four practise rounds and the four rounds of stroke play in the tournament proper. "And we will have to attend various functions which go along with the championships so it is important that we remain fresh and don't get too tired," he said.

And he speaks from experience having played in the last championships in Germany. There Mansell and the Bermuda team finished in 49th place out of 59 countries - a spot he would like to improve on. Playing outside of Berlin in 2000 Mansell and his partners (Michael Sims who has now turned professional, Robert Spurling and Dave Purcell) finished with a total score of 967. Their individual scores were Mansell 79, 82, 79, 80: 320; Sims 79, 72, 81, 88: 320; Spurling 82, 80, 83, 84: 329; Purcell 83, 87, 83, 86: 339.

This year there has been a format change to the event - the 23rd competition for the Eisenhower Trophy. The teams participating in the Eisenhower will now consist of three players. The organisers recently decreased this number from four in order to allow more countries to play in the championships, while still maintaining the event on two courses.

Mansell said he is also not worried about any terrorist action in Malaysia. "I imagine they want to put on a really good championship and I would guess the security will be very good," he said.

While he and Carr are in their 30s (Carr is 37 and Mansell is 36) he has no doubts about the way 17-year-old Dillas will play.

"Jarryd can hit it a long way. I have known Jarryd since he was very young. Actually he is probably playing more tournament golf than Tim or myself. He should do fairly well. The difference he will find is that there will be more pressure at this tournament than perhaps what he faced at the Calloway Junior Championships (where he finished eighth last summer in California).

"Most of the pressure is the expectations you put on yourself - of where you want to place among the scope of things. Obviously we have no dreams of trying to come first but we want to finish respectively for the size of the island that we are. Midfield would be very good. Bermuda is one of the smallest places competing at the championships. Then there are the countries which are bigger than ours - places like Latvia but which do not have a great history of golf. There are a number of places which are coming out of wars and are now only getting into golf."

Mansell said that although Dillas is still a teenager he has always been impressed with him. "Jarryd is quite mature for his age. He is very passionate about his game and very competitive. He likes to win. He will certainly give his best out there."

And it has been through the junior golf programme that Mansell has seen the improvement of Bermuda's youngsters. He said: "Over the past eight years and even less, kids have had so much more opportunity than I did to go out and play in international tournaments which is really where you improve. When I was in the junior ranks we had only a few events. But junior golf has been growing ever since. You have to expose these kids to a lot of golf and send them overseas to a lot of tournaments - that is when you see their level really improve. The problem is when you get to the older ranks and you have to work and you have a family - that is when it can get tough. There are only a few events in the year you can play unless you can sponsor yourself and go overseas. But that takes a lot of money. A lot of players are now going through the college (scholarships) programme which is really the best way."

And Mansell expects that the Bermuda team will see the cream of the crop from those US college programmes at the championships.

"During the last championships two years ago the US had Bryce Molder who is now a professional. The US have the top college players and they are usually in top form at this time of year. They have so many players to choose from," he said. In Germany the US came out on top.

The players can expect to have a caddie to help them during the championships. But Mansell is under no illusions. He said: "Most are not prodessional caddies - they are volunteers who want to watch the golf and want to help. Most of the time you will have to rely upon yourself to read the greens. Actually the help you will get is from your teammates during the practise rounds. But when we start the tournament we will not be playing together. We will be playing with two other players from other countries."

And he expects the weather to be hot. "It is also during their rainy season," said Mansell adding that he also expects the course to resemble set-ups one sees in the US. "I also expect the courses to be longer than our courses in Bermuda which are really not that long in comparison to the US."

The World Amateur Golf Team Championships is the world's biggest golf tournament and is played over four days of gross strokeplay. The two lowest individual scores of each three-man team determine a country's daily total. In the 2000 event in Germany, 59 countries took part in the tournament. This year it is estimated that as many as 400 top amateurs and 250 high-ranking golf officials will converge at Saujana.

The United States are the defending champions after their victory two years ago in Germany. Malaysia will be the seventh Asia-Pacific Zone nation to host the biennial championships, which gather some of the best amateurs in the world.

Both of Saujana's courses, designed by Ron Fream and opened in 1985, will be used for the championships. The Palm Course, nicknamed "The Cobra", has been the host of five Malaysian Opens. In February, Vijay Singh defeated Padraig Harrington in a three-hole playoff for the title. Saujana's other course, the Bunga Raya, the Malaysian word for hibiscus, the national flower, is nicknamed "The Crocodile" for its abundant water hazards.

Two years ago the United States weathered a raw and rainy final round at Sporting Club Berlin and secured the Eisenhower Trophy for a record 11th time, winning the World Amateur Team Championship by 16 strokes over defending champion Great Britain and Ireland. It was just the second USA victory since 1982 in the competition - an event in which the country has only twice finished outside the top five.

Bryce Molder, the then 21-year-old first-team All-America last season for Georgia Tech, ignored the conditions to shoot four-under-par 68 over the Faldo Course, leading the US to a three-under score of 213 for the day. That put the US at 23-under 841 and gave it the third-largest margin of victory in championship history. Those two largest victories were also registered by the US, in 1960 and 1980.

The US went into the final round leading by seven shots and gradually pulled away from all challengers. GBI gained the silver medal position on the podium after a closing score of 220 on the Faldo Course. Australia, which won the title four years ago in Manila, Philippines, was another shot back and settled for the bronze at 858 while Sweden, the champion a decade ago, took fourth at 862.

Germany, never better than sixth place in 1986 and 1992, was attempting to become only the fifth host to earn a medal.

The championship is conducted by the World Amateur Golf Council, founded in 1958 to encourage the international development of the game.