ST ANNES, ENGLAND | Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club is an appropriate spot to ponder the chances of the Great Britain and Ireland team regaining the Walker Cup later this summer, when the 49th match takes place September 2-3 on the Old Course in St Andrews, 100 years after it hosted the second match.
Royal Lytham was, after all, the scene of GB&I’s last victory, a 16½-9½ triumph in 2015. It was a fifth win in six home-soil tussles and also a sixth victory in 11 matches on either side of the Atlantic, but that period of equality between the two sides has become a rather more lopsided affair.
In the 2017 match at Los Angeles Country Club – venue for this year’s U.S. Open – the home side inflicted a 19-7 thumping on the visitors. The Americans backed that up with a five-point triumph at Royal Liverpool in 2019 and made it three in a row with a 14-12 victory at Seminole two years ago.
If there are concerns here about the possibility of a fourth defeat in a row, then there is also hope in the details of the last two matches: GB&I led heading into the final series of singles in 2019 and was only one point in arrears at the same point in 2021.
The pessimists would counter again, noting that at the start of last week nine of the world’s current top 10 amateurs were American, with GB&I’s leading man – England’s John Gough – ranked 14th.
The optimists might wonder when American dominance in the World Amateur Golf Ranking will cease to be such an overvalued asset. It was, after all, a routine state of play during that run of six GB&I wins in 11 and has been a consistent trend during Europe’s period of Ryder Cup supremacy. Put simply, European and GB&I golfers prefer to play as underdogs.
“Why would we leave the clubhouse if it was played on rankings? We wouldn’t. But this is sport, not a piece of paper.”
Nigel Edwards, England Golf Director of coaching
Nonetheless, the team will want to arrive in St Andrews feeling confident about form, and last week’s Lytham Trophy represented the first opportunity to shine at the elite level in the British and Irish season.
Leading the way was Gough, already a winner this year of the Australian Master of the Amateurs and defeated only in extra holes in the European Nations Cup a week ahead of his defence of the Lytham Trophy. He was among 19 players named to captain Stuart Wilson’s GB&I squad, from which 10 players will be selected for the match.
Gough opened with a 4-over par 74 and dropped another three shots through five holes of his second round. Lesser performers would have wilted. Gough, in contrast, played his next 13 holes in 3-under to make the cut.
Had he earned a DP World Tour card at Qualifying School last autumn the 24-year-old Englishman would have joined the professional ranks. Instead he is hoping to emulate his brother Conor, who represented GB&I in the 2019 match.
His quality stands out, and Gough has recorded the wins to prove it. By week's end, England's Frank Kennedy also had furthered his claims for inclusion in the Walker Cup lineup with victory on the famous links here. But beyond such obvious qualifications, how do those responsible for putting a team together go about the project? Who better to ask than Nigel Edwards, the Welshman who won two of the four Walker Cups in which he competed as a player and two of the three in which he captained?
Walking the fairways at Lytham, the scene of his second triumph as captain eight years ago, England Golf’s director of coaching told GGP: “When you’re picking a team, I would say that 90 percent of the time eight of the 10 pick themselves.”
And then? It becomes necessary to dig a little deeper.
“It’s a huge week and unlike anything they’ve ever dealt with because very few golfers play more than one Walker Cup these days,” Edwards said. “There’s a long lead-in culminating in an opening ceremony, the television cameras are watching, and also the simple fact that the match is almost always the culmination of their amateur career adds even more pressure.
“That combination makes it inevitable that not everyone will play their best golf, so I wanted characters who could overcome that – golfers with a good attitude that made them competitors.
“Then there’s the question of performing under pressure. Short game and putting – if you’re on the last, can you hole out? Are you doing it consistently? Down the stretch, can you keep the ball in play? The Old Course is wide open, but 16 and 17 aren’t, and they will be pivotal holes.”
There are, of course, very few opportunities to display these qualities in the heat of battle, so potential candidates have to be scrutinised at all times. Smart decision-making and determination to make unlikely cuts will earn a big tick (well done, Gough). Head dropping and careless preparation, the opposite.
For the match itself, Edwards said: “My message to the players was always, ‘Let’s put them under pressure, because no one performs at their best under pressure.’ People get nervous and we want to be the ones who deal best with that. It’s a great challenge. Accept it and thrive on it. The Americans will be very buoyant, so show them you’re up for the challenge.
“There’s no point beating around the bush: If you don’t play great, you’ll get beat. Average golf won’t win it. You need to be in the mindset of prepare better, play better, hole out better, compete hard and be positive.”
It’s stirring stuff and also refreshingly down-to-earth, ending with a final reference to the world ranking delivered with jaw set and eyes narrowed.
“Why would we leave the clubhouse if it was played on rankings?” Edwards asked, those narrowed eyes now twinkling. “We wouldn’t. But this is sport, not a piece of paper.”
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Top: GB&I captain Stuart Wilson (left) will be happy to have John Gough as his leading man at the Walker Cup.
ROSS PARKER, R&A via getty images