Hammer helps U.S. emerge from Day 1 of Walker Cup Match at Seminole with a 7-5 lead

    After a year of worrying about COVID protocols, teams from the United States and Great Britain & Ireland competing in the 48^th Walker Cup Match, which teed off Saturday at the iconic Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Fla., got hit this week with a good old-fashioned stomach bug.

   U.S. captain Nathaniel Crosby and his GB&I counterpart Stuart Wilson both had to go to both their alternates during a day that included four foursome matches in the morning and eight singles matches in the afternoon.

   In the end, it was Texas junior Cole Hammer, a veteran of the United States’ 15.5-10.5 victory over GB&I at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England two years ago, who delivered points at the beginning and at the end of a long day to give the Stars & Stripes a 7-5 lead heading into Day 2 Sunday.

   Hammer was coming off a brilliant victory in the Big 12 Championship at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan He had risen to No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) two years ago at Royal Liverpool, but struggled a little at times in 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic turned everybody’s world upside down.

   Hammer arrived at Seminole at No. 14 in the WAGR and Crosby didn’t think twice about pairing him with Georgia senior Davis Thompson, No. 3 in the WAGR, in the first foursomes match of the day.

   And Hammer delivered, his 35-foot birdie putt on the 18^th green clinching a 1-up victory over a solid    GB&I duo of collegians, Wake Forest junior Alex Fitzpatrick, an Englishman who is No. 12 in the WAGR, and Stanford sophomore Bardley Brown, also from England.

   Hammer finished the day with a solid 3 and 1 decision over John Murphy, a 22-year-old from Ireland. Hammer looked like he was going to cruise to victory when he rolled to a 5-up lead through nine holes. But nothing comes easy in a Walker Cup, particularly on a golf course like Seminole, a Donald Ross original.

   Murphy cut his deficit to 2-down, but ran out of holes when Hammer got it up and down for par on the 17^th hole to close out his 2 and 1 triumph.

   All four foursomes matches went the distance, the first time that has happened in a foursomes session since 1983 at Royal Liverpool.

   Crosby called on one of his alternates, SMU senior Mac Meissner, No. 19 in the WAGR, and teamed him with Ricky Castillo, an immensely talented sophomore at Florida and No. 10 in the WAGR. Messner and Castillo delivered a full point with their 2-up victory over 22-year-old Englishman Jack Dyer, one of GB&I captain Wilson’s alternates, and Matty Lamb, a 23-year-old Englishman.

   Fitzpatrick’s Wake Forest teammate Mark Power, a 20-year-old from Ireland and No. 29 in the WAGR, and fellow Irishman Murphy pulled out a hard-fought 1-up decision over a typically inspired Crosby team of cross-state college rivals Austin Eckroat, the Oklahoma State senior and No. 11 in the WAGR, and Quade Cummins, a redshirt senior at Oklahoma and No. 16 in the WAGR.

   Wilson paired his other alternate, Jake Bolton, a 22-year-old Englishman, with fellow Englishman Angus Flanagan, a senior at Minnesota and No. 42 in the WAGR. Flanagan was so impressive two springs ago in earning co-medalist honors in some really difficult conditions in the Big Ten Championship at Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon Course, an A.W. Tillinghast masterpiece.

   Crosby countered with Stewart Hagestad, the veteran mid-am and winner of the 2016 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship at Stonewall and No. 17 in the WAGR, and Pepperdine’s tremendously talented sophomore William Mouw, No. 34 in the WAGR.

   Bolton and Flanagan enabled GB&I to get out of the foursome session with the Walker Cup Match deadlocked at 2-2 with a 1-up victory.

   The highest ranked U.S. player, Hammer’s Texas teammate Pierceson Coody, a junior from Plano, Texas and No. 2 in the WAGR, was still recovering from his bout with food poisoning, but he claimed a 2-up victory over Fitzpatrick in a battle of heavyweights at the top of the singles session.

   Power, the Irishman who plays at Wake Forest, earned 3 and 2 victory over Thompson.

   But Crosby got a couple of relatively easy wins from Castillo, who knocked off Ben Schmidt, an 18-year-old Englishman and No. 33 in the WAGR, and Mouw, who delivered a 4 and 2 victory over Ben Jones, a 21-year-old Englishman.

   Matty Lamb, a 23-year-old Englishman, claimed a 2 and 1 victory over Oklahoma’s Cummins, but Eckroat rallied from 1-down with three holes to play to pull out a 1-up victory over Flanagan.

   Brown, the Stanford sophomore, got GB&I within one with a 2 and 1 victory over Florida State senior John Pak, No. 4 in the WAGR. Pak and Hagestad, like Hammer, are veterans of the comeback victory for the U.S. at Royal Liverpool.

   The U.S. will take a 7-5 lead into Day 2 after Hammer concluded Saturday’s proceedings with his victory over Murphy. But nobody knows better than Hammer, Hagestad and Pak that there is a lot of golf to be played because a Day 1 advantage can go up in smoke in a hurry if the U.S. team doesn’t keep grinding.