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To the surprise of no one close to the amateur game, Nathaniel Crosby was appointed late last month to return as U.S. Walker Cup captain for the 2021 match, which will be played May 8-9 of that year at Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Fla.
“I am thrilled and full of gratitude,” Crosby, the 1981 U.S. Amateur champion, told me last week.
This will mark Crosby’s third Walker Cup experience. He was a member of the winning 1983 team at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England. And in September he returned to Hoylake and captained the American squad to a 15½-10½ victory.
The United States overcame a 7-5 deficit after Day 1, rallying with victories in eight of the 10 Sunday singles matches to secure its largest margin of victory in an away match since 1987.
The 48th Walker Cup at Seminole will mark the first time that the biennial team competition between 10 amateur players representing the United States and 10 amateur players representing Great Britain & Ireland will be held in the spring on U.S. soil.
Spring dates are not completely unusual, although the match has been contested in August or September in every renewal since the 1989. Since World War II, the Walker Cup has been played in the spring 11 times, all in Great Britain.
The Seminole match is very much thought to be a one-off based on an opportunity to play on a magnificent golf course. The days of the Walker Cup being played in the spring in Great Britain likely have passed, as the GB&I team would rather have all summer for its players to be in top form, rather than have to play coming off of winter.
May dates will make for a different selection process for U.S. team candidates. The summer of 2020 will replace the summer of 2021 as an evaluation period for the USGA’s International Team Selection Committee. And because those 2020 tournaments will be played so far in advance of the 2021 Walker Cup, the results are likely to carry less weight than they might otherwise. Conversely, the 2020-21-college season will take on much greater importance, especially the second semester.
“Giving advice is just not for me. These kids figure things out at mach speed. After a few practice rounds, they will have figured out how to play the course.”
Nathaniel Crosby
Crosby will benefit in one very meaningful way from the spring dates: He will not have to worry as much about prospective U.S. players turning professional before the Walker Cup is played. In 2019, at least four college players that Crosby wanted on the team turned pro shortly after the conclusion of the NCAA Championships in late May. But because the 2021 Walker Cup will be contested before the NCAA Championships, Crosby and the selection committee should get everybody they want at Seminole.
Crosby downplays the notion of having an advantage by virtue of his membership at Seminole. “Giving advice is just not for me,” he said. “These kids figure things out at mach speed. After a few practice rounds, they will have figured out how to play the course.”
Furthermore, he believes the real value of the captain is to identify personalities in order to create pairings. He thinks that was his primary contribution to the victory at Hoylake, although he was quick to give credit to team manager Robbie Zalzneck, who works for the USGA.
Nonetheless, you can expect the son of Bing Crosby to regale the youngsters with tales of his Seminole experiences with Ben Hogan.
His first tour of duty as Walker Cup captain reinforced a concern that Crosby has had for some time – the cost of playing summer amateur golf. He would like to use his final months with a bully pulpit to address this issue.
“Face it, the summer is dominated by tournaments in the eastern part of the United States,” he said. “This makes it really hard on kids from the West Coast to travel and compete. It’s just too expensive to fly across the country a couple of times each summer.”
Crosby longs for a return to the days when two guys could get in a car to drive to a tournament and share a room at a Holiday Inn. He would like to help revive some of the amateur events he played in as a young competitor, and he’d like to see better coordination among all the summer tournament directors.
“I want guys to play their way onto the Walker Cup team,” he said. “But we have to give them opportunities. Maybe there is a way to create a series of regional events on both sides of the country that players could drive to.”
Thoughtful stuff from a past U.S. Amateur champion.
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