Team International won the Arnold Palmer Cup by the slimmest of margins.
COURTESY ARNOLD PALMER CUP
For a second straight year, Team International defeated Team USA in the Arnold Palmer Cup, winning 30.5-29.5 at Tralee Golf Links in Ireland. Team International led 18.5-17.5 going into singles after the teams tied two of the first three sessions. That one-point lead was crucial, as the squad tied the singles session as well.
Vanessa Borovilos (Canada, Texas A&M), who clinched the winning half-point for Team International, said playing in this team event for top college players was special, but stressful.
“I felt so bad if I hit a bad shot because it’s for [my teammates], it’s not for me,” Borovilos said. “But to be able to have all of them sitting there after the match, for everyone I know it’s so much more than just the individual and we only get this a couple times a year so we really try and enjoy it.”
With its victory, Team International now trails Team USA in the all-time series, 15-14-1, but leads the series 5-4 since 2018, when women started playing in the event. Team International won, 35-25, in 2025 at Congaree Golf Club in South Carolina, its first Palmer Cup victory since 2022 and first on U.S. soil since 2020.
At Tralee in County Kerry, the teams split Friday’s opening mixed four-ball session, 6-6, with each winning five matches and drawing two. Half of the Americans’ points came in the ninth to eleventh matches, where the Americans won all three.
“I told them we came here not to just hope to win today but to go out and take it. And that’s exactly what we did. We kept the cup at home.”
Janice Olivencia
Team International took control of the match on Day 2, despite it being American Independence Day. Team International won the morning foursomes session, 6.5-5.5, and took the overall lead, 12.5-11.5. It would have been a bigger lead if the American pairing of Kylie Chong and Jasmine Koo (both USC) hadn’t won the final two holes to halve their match against Veronika Kedronova (Czech Republic, Kent State) and 2026 Augusta National Women’s Amateur champion María José Marín (Colombia, Arkansas).
In Saturday afternoon’s mixed foursomes, Team International once again prevented the Americans from winning a session. The teams took six points each, giving Team International an 18.5-17.5 lead going into singles.
On Sunday, Nguyen Anh Minh (Vietnam, Oregon State) put the first point on the board for the internationals, beating the previously undefeated Cayden Pope (Auburn), 5 and 3. After George Cannon (Scotland, Stirling) and Harry Takis (Australia, San Diego State) won their matches for Team International, the lead was 21.5-18.5.
It became a four-point lead at 24-20 when Árni Sveinsson (Iceland, LSU) beat Connor Williams (Arizona State), 6 and 5, and then a five-point lead at 25-20 after Rianne Malixi (Philippines, Duke) made a long eagle putt on 18 to beat Koo, 1 up.
A statue of Arnold Palmer stood watch on the first tee.
CourtesY Arnold Palmer Cup
When Tim Wiedemeyer (Germany, Texas Tech) beat William Jennings (Alabama), 2 and 1, Team International’s total reached 29.5, a half-point away from retaining and a point away from winning outright. Cayetana Fernández García-Poggio (Spain, Texas A&M) secured the retention, and a competition-leading 3.5 points earned, by halving her match against Avery Weed (Mississippi State) to bring the score to 30-26.
Borovilos clinched the Arnold Palmer Cup victory for Team International when she made her putt to take a one-hole lead through 17 against Mackenzie Lee in the final match out, which guaranteed a half-point.
After winning, Borovilos credited Team International’s co-head coach Janice Olivencia, who gave a speech on Saturday night to fire up her team.
“I told them we came here not to just hope to win today but to go out and take it,” Olivencia said. “And that’s exactly what we did. We kept the cup at home.”
At the end of the match, the players voted for a player on their team whom they think best represents Arnold Palmer’s legacy, with the top male vote getter earning an exemption into next year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational and the top female vote getter earning an exemption into the Amundi Evian Championship this week. Luke Poulter (England, Florida) and Lauren Kim (Canada, Texas) won the votes.
RESULTS
Everett Munez
Joshua Bai goes home victorious in the North & South Amateur.
LOGAN WHITTON, COURTESY USGA
Mary Miller outlasted Emilia Doran in a 19-hole duel Saturday to win the North & South Women’s Amateur at Pinehurst No. 2, while New Zealand’s Joshua Bai defeated Keaton Vo, 1 up, to win the men’s title.
Miller prevailed in the final of the third event on the women’s Elite Amateur Golf Series after Doran missed a 3-foot par on the first sudden-death playoff hole.
Mary Miller
Edward M. Pio Roda
Miller, a University of Mississippi sophomore, came out blazing Saturday, making birdies on the second and third holes and a conceded eagle on the fifth. She turned with a 4-up lead and seemed headed to a certain victory.
Doran had other thoughts. She birdied No. 11 and the last four holes to square the match. “I hit a reset button,” she told GGP. “I just got determined to hit the best shots I could and start making birdies. I proved to myself just how much fight I have.”
Doran, who captured the 36-hole stroke-play medal, was a four-time All-American at Wake Forest University. She resisted the siren call of professional golf and instead is an emerging golf television personality who intends to compete at the highest levels of the women’s amateur game.
On the men’s side, Bai rallied from a 3 down at the turn to beat University of North Carolina golfer Vo in the 126th playing of this historic tournament, the third stop on the men’s Elite Amateur Golf Series.
“This place is always good to the Kiwis,” Bai said. Bai joins countrymen Michael Campbell, the 2005 U.S. Open champion, and Danny Lee, the 2008 U.S. Amateur champion, as winners at Pinehurst.
“It’s very, very special,” added Bai, who was playing in the event for the fifth time. “It’s a place I’ve been coming to since I was a little, little kid with U.S. Kids. … It just means so, so much to win here. This is like a second home.”
MEN’S RESULTS | WOMEN’S RESULTS
Staff Report
