DORNOCH, SCOTLAND | The Oxford versus Cambridge University Golf Match, which was played at Royal Dornoch Golf Club over the weekend, dates to 1878 and is the oldest amateur event of them all. The Varsity Match, as it is commonly known, remains the best of occasions for those immediately involved, even if it no longer is seen in the same lofty league as the universities’ boat race or the nowadays not-quite-so-famous annual rugby and cricket fixtures.
Golf has ended up in a bit of a time warp. In the early days, the Oxford and Cambridge teams included some of the finest amateurs in the land, with Oxford’s Roger Wethered involved in a playoff with eventual winner Jock Hutchison for the 1921 Open Championship at St Andrews.
Today, on the other hand, it is rare for any of their number to be on a par with those amateurs who play on more of a full-time basis, either on the amateur circuit or at an American college, or the R&A’s five-year-old Student Tour Series. The latter involves qualifiers in Scotland, France, Portugal and Spain ahead of finals in St Andrews, and was designed to give golf-mad students an alternative to the American option. Already, it is succeeding on that front.
At the moment, the universities involved in the R&A’s scheme include, among others, Stirling, St Andrews, Maynooth and Loughborough. As to why Oxford and Cambridge are not in the mix, it is because they have inherited a time-honoured schedule in which they compete against a variety of well-known golf clubs, members of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society and, ultimately, each other.
That plenty of the Oxford and Cambridge brigade will not care overmuch whether they are in or out of the R&A’s series is entirely understandable. However, there are others, and they include Josh Fallows, the captain of last week’s Oxford side, who think that the R&A initiative should not be ignored.
“Personally, I think it’s a great idea,” Fallows told Global Golf Post. “I definitely see it as a way forward, and I like the sound of it even more because it’s stroke-play and World Amateur Golf Ranking points are at stake. The problem is that I don’t see how it could work for us.
“Because our academic load is what it is, we don’t have time to play in the British University and College Sports (BUCS), let alone fly to the continent for the Student Series qualifiers. These events would extend beyond weekends.
“The more sports-orientated universities will be getting plenty of support from their hierarchy when it comes to opportunities like these, but we don’t. Our admin people are probably not fussed whether we play golf or not, what with the focus being on education first and foremost, which isn’t, of course, the case with our academic equivalents in America.” (Stanford leads the way at both the men’s and the women’s leagues on that side of the Atlantic.)
“It’s a shame golf isn’t more celebrated, especially when the Oxford-Cambridge match is such a cool affair and so much a part of the game’s and the universities’ traditions,” Fallows said. “But when you see that even the rowing contingent and the rugby players are expected to keep on top of their studies, you get it. Whatever the future holds, no one would want any change of emphasis to be at the expense of the educational excellence, which is at the heart of these establishments.”
Make no mistake: This self-confessed “golf nut” loves what he has known over the past few years, and all the more because he had no idea whether Oxford took the game even vaguely seriously when he arrived in the autumn of 2020. His route to Oxford was via a two-year golf scholarship at Lancashire’s Rossall School, with the scholarship his happy lot after promising performances in a series of leading British open junior events.
The Oxford and Cambridge hierarchy may well lack the necessary impetus to get involved in the R&A’s Student Tour Series, but were they to be made aware of what is happening in golf’s outside world, they could make a move which would work for all concerned.
Initially, he had been eyeing an American college, and Rossall made contact with several, including Yale, on his behalf. However, after a run of missed cuts in the amateur arena, he decided that he would do better to accept a place at Oxford. “I felt that that was the better choice for someone of my standard,” he said. “It’s seldom a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket, which is what I would have done if I’d gone to an American college. I’ve known players of my standard go down that route and end up without a plan for the future.”
What with Fallows having no hesitation in saying that he has in some ways become a better golfer during his time at Oxford, one can only assume that the same might apply to a few of his university playing companions. And what that might mean is that if they could only update their schedule to allow for more stroke play, they could pepper their hours in the library with happy thoughts – realistic or otherwise – of playing tour-level golf when their degree is done. As everyone knows, there is no great hurry for a golfer to turn professional. (Virginia Elena Carta, the 26-year-old Italian who played for the Cambridge men’s team in 2020 while doing a master’s in environmental policy, finished 44th on the Ladies European Tour Order of Merit last year.)
The Oxford and Cambridge hierarchy may well lack the necessary impetus to get involved in the R&A’s Student Tour Series, but were they to be made aware of what is happening in golf’s outside world, they could make a move which would work for all concerned. “It would be good,” Fallows said, “if they could start talking about it sooner rather than later.”
“There’s absolutely no harm in having a discussion at this point,” said the octogenarian Donald Steel, an esteemed golf architect and a three-time winner of the same Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society’s President’s Putter that Fallows won last year.
Only last week, Steel noticed what could be taken for a hint of change. “For a long time,” he said, “you would have to look on a clubhouse wall for a list of players in the Oxford-Cambridge match. This year, James Skelton, from the Oxford and Cambridge Society, has come up with what is the most handsome programme yet.”
Fallows was the triumphant captain in this year's match. His Oxford team claimed Friday's foursomes series, 3-2, before Cambridge fought back early in Saturday's singles to level the match at 5-5. The Oxford lineup was not to be denied however and completed a 9-6 victory, its 12th in the past 14 matches.
E-MAIL LEWINE
PHOTOS: Courtesy R&A