Three-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion Stewart Hagestad has played in five Walker Cup Matches, and his team has won five times. The 34-year-old California native holed a 25-foot downhill putt on the short par-3 15th hole at Cypress Point on Sunday to defeat Eliot Baker, 4 and 3, and ensure that the United States would retain the Walker Cup, just moments before teammate Preston Stout clinched victory.
Hagestad improved his Walker Cup singles record to 7-1 with two victories at Cypress Point, a career winning percentage of .875, fourth best among Americans who have played at least four matches. The only U.S. players to post better percentages are Bobby Jones (5-0), Peter Uihlein (4-0) and Bill Campbell (7-0-1).
“I am fired up,” he said after holing the putt. “This is the first place that I ever had a chance to play that was recognized as being different and special, so to do this here and be a part of this team is really neat.”
On Friday evening before the Walker Cup, the GB&I team received a video from Rory McIlroy, the reigning Masters champion and a 2007 Walker Cup participant. McIlroy, who is gearing up to represent Europe against the United States in the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black later this month, had a clear message.
“Please beat them because I know we’re going to beat them at Bethpage,” McIlroy said in the video, according to a report on Golf Channel’s website.
While McIlroy was winning the Amgen Irish Open as the final day of the Walker Cup unfolded, many golf notables were at Cypress Point. Bryson DeChambeau, who played on the 2015 U.S. Walker Cup team and is part of this year’s U.S. Ryder Cup squad, fired up the American team and supported them on the course.
Others in attendance included Hal Sutton, who played in the 1981 Walker Cup at Cypress Point, 1999 Walker Cup participant Matt Kuchar, World Golf Hall of Famer Juli Inkster and 17-time LPGA winner Dottie Pepper.
In the lead-up to this year’s match the GB&I team had the chance to pick the brain of Ian Poulter, the seven-time European Ryder Cup competitor (and father of team member Luke Poulter) whose nickname was “the Postman” (because he always delivered).
The elder Poulter is not only one of Europe’s finest Ryder Cup performers, his two greatest efforts both came on American soil, when top-scoring for his side in a losing cause at Valhalla in 2008 and when fuelling the Miracle of Medinah in 2012.
Last Wednesday night he joined the team for dinner. “It was really special,” said Niall Shiels Donegan. “Obviously he’s done a lot in team golf and it was pretty cool to get some lessons from him.”
Tyler Weaver added: “Having the chance to ask him questions, and find out what it means, and how to deal with the pressure, has been so important. It’s been a great learning experience.”
Luke Poulter proved himself a chip off the old block when it comes to bringing drama to a team golf week. During Thursday’s practice he holed out for an eagle 2 at the 420-yard, par-4 first hole and then made a hole-in-one at the 155-yard, par-3 third.
The Poulters were not alone in being a prominent father-and-son combination on the visiting team. In fact, there were three of them.
Shiels Donegan’s father is Lawrence Donegan, the former golf correspondent for The Guardian newspaper who wrote the acclaimed golf book “Four-iron in the Soul” (published as “Maybe It Should Have Been a 3-Iron” in North America) and who was, before he picked up a pen, bassist with the U.K. chart-topping band the Bluebells.
Meanwhile Tyler Weaver’s father is the former horse-racing jockey Jason Weaver, one of only seven riders to complete 200 wins in a U.K. flat racing season and winner of the prestigious Ascot Gold Cup in 1995. The Weavers’ sporting pedigree actually stretches down and across the generations. Tyler’s grandfather, Eric Weaver, was a professional soccer player and his older brother Max is also an elite amateur golfer, good enough to have won this year’s Welsh Amateur Championship and caddied for Tyler in this June’s U.S. Open.
Connor Graham’s brother Gregor is no slouch either – last year he won both the South African Amateur and Brabazon Trophy.
Meanwhile, the team’s reserve, 32-year-old Caolan Rafferty, has been adding to his family tree. In May this year he became a father when his wife, Hayley, gave birth to their first child, Maisy.
On Saturday, the United States lost the morning foursomes session, 3-1, with Michael La Sasso and Jase Summy claiming the sole point for the Americans. Surprisingly, the last time the United States won an opening session was in 2009 at Merion Golf Club, where they won the opening foursomes, 3-1. From 2011-2025 (eight Walker Cups), the GB&I team claimed victory in five of the opening sessions and tied the Americans in the other three.
The Walker Cup is named for former USGA president George Herbert Walker, who donated the trophy to the USGA in 1921, the year before the first event at National Golf Links of America, a U.S. victory. Walker was also the grandfather of George H.W. Bush and great-grandfather of George W. Bush, the 41st and 43rd presidents of the United States.
More than 100 years after Walker’s donation, George W. Bush was on hand at Cypress Point, showing off his claw grip on the greens the day before the event’s 50th edition and watching the competition on Sunday.
SCORING
Staff and wire reports