Smith's Walker Cup experience will take him to Ireland and Lahinch in 2026

 

   When teams from the United States and Great Britain & Ireland raise the flags before the start of the 51^st Walker Cup Match in early September at Lahinch Golf Club along the Atlantic Ocean on the Emerald Isle’s West Coast, it will mark 17 years since U.S. captain Nathan Smith’s first Walker Cup experience as a player at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course.

   I was there, too, in my previous life as a golf writer at the Delaware County Daily Times and covering that Walker Cup remains one of my most cherished memories of a 38-year career in the newspaper business.

   Merion lies in the Ardmore section of Haverford Township in Delaware County, a golf community that, four years after that 2009 Walker Cup, joined forces to stage a U.S. Open in the relatively tiny footprint of a busy Philadelphia suburb that many golf purists feared could no longer rise to that kind of logistical challenge.

   It was a neighborhood I grew up in and I had been a Merion looper into young adulthood, capping my 12 years there by grabbing a bag in the 1981 U.S. Open.

   Since expanding this blog a decade ago, upon my forced exile from the newspaper biz, I’ve always taken the opportunity provided by the January gloom and cold to see what some of the guys from that 2009 U.S. team that claimed a 16.5-9.5 victory over GB&I are up to.

   And for the second year in a row, the most interesting moment in those disparate golf journeys for 2026 belongs to Smith, the pride of Allegheny College who has earned a lofty perch in the storied tradition of western Pennsylvania golf, as he prepares to captain the U.S. team in a Walker Cup for the second year in a row.

   Smith, the high school state champion in Pennsylvania as a sophomore at Brookville in 1994, had first made his mark on the national scene when he won the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship in 2003 as a mid-am “rookie.”

    He was a dominant player on the Pennsylvania amateur scene and had won the Pennsylvania Amateur Championship at Waynesborough Country Club earlier in the summer of 2009 when he was selected to join captain George “Buddy” Marucci’s U.S. Walker Cup team being played at Marucci’s home course at Merion.

   That Walker Cup at Merion proved to be a springboard in the amateur career of Smith. He won a second U.S. Mid-Am crown a few weeks later and would add two more U.S. Mid-Am crowns in 2010 and 2012.

   He would represent the United States in the next two Walker Cups, a loss in 2011 at the Royal Aberdeen Golf Club and a victory in 2013 at the National Golf Links of America, the C.B. MacDonald classic on Long Island.

   It wasn’t a question of whether Smith would take his rightful turn as the U.S. Walker Cup captain, but when.

   The call came at just the right time as Smith was the captain last summer in the 50^th Walker Cup Match, special because the Walker Cup is always special, but extra special because it was contested at the Cypress Point Club, the Alister MacKenzie masterpiece on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula.

   GB&I was, as always, tough early, building a 3-1 lead following Saturday morning’s opening session of foursome matches.

   But by the end of the weekend, the U.S. would flex its considerable muscle, sweeping to a dominant 8-1-1 run in the Sunday singles to pull away for a deceiving 17-9 victory.

   Not sure when this decision was made, but the USGA and the Royal & Ancient got together at some point and agreed to have Walker Cups in back-to-back years and synch up the Walker Cup with the Curtis Cup, the women’s series of U.S. vs. GB&I matches, in even years, to avoid conflicts with the World Amateur Team Championship, which will now be played in odd years.

   Bottom line, the normally biennial Walker Cup Match will come right back this year at Lahinch. It made perfect sense to bring Smith back as the captain again.

   Smith gathered with 18 candidates for this year’s U.S. team last month at three courses in the Jupiter, Fla. area, seven of whom were on the team that defeated GB&I at Cypress Point.

   At some point in the summer, the top three Americans in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) will be automatic qualifiers for Smith’s team headed for Lahinch.

   There will be a lot of warm memories for Smith when he returns to the Hugh Wilson design at Merion for this summer’s U.S. Amateur Championship. The winner of the U.S. Am, should he be an American, will also be an automatic qualifier for the U.S. Walker Cup team.

   Right after the U.S. Amateur, the USGA Team Selection Committee will announce the remainder of the 10-man team Smith will take to Lahinch.

   All of which means that 2026, regardless of the outcome of the Walker Cup Match, will be, much like 2025 was, a very good year for Smith, one of the alumni of that U.S. Walker Cup team at Merion in 2009.

   Not sure if Smith could have imagined when he had his first Walker Cup experience at Merion 17 years ago what a big part of his life the series would become.

   Rickie Fowler, who was the unquestioned leader of that U.S. Walker Cup team at Merion, remains the most successful alumni of that group as a professional.

   The 37-year-old Fowler had something of a bounce-back year in 2025, making 18 cuts in 21 starts, coming up just short of a trip to the Tour Championship, despite finishing in a tie for seventh place in the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland.

   Fowler’s $3.4 million in earnings last year has him entering 2026 with more than $54 million in career earnings on the PGA Tour. His season gets under way with this week’s stop in The American Express – it will always be the Bob Hope Desert Classic to me – in LaQuinta, Calif.

   Fowler has six career PGA Tour wins, but none since the Rocket Mortgage Classic in 2023.

   Fowler famously finished in the top five in all four major professional championships in 2014, but he has had trouble getting to the first tee in majors lately.

   He missed the cut in last spring’s PGA Championship at the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C., but finished in a tie for 14^th place in The Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland. He was unable to earn a spot in the field for The Masters or the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club.

   Fowler remains one of the most popular members on the PGA Tour and he will no doubt have a nice following when he comes to Aronimink Golf Club, the Donald Ross gem in Newtown Square, for this the PGA Championship in May.

   The latest issue of Golf Digest just arrived in my mailbox the other day and Fowler was the magazine’s choice to receive its Arnie Award, which salutes golfers who give back with their time, money, skill and passion.

   If you get a chance to read the story, you will see why Fowler remains such a popular figure in the golf world. It also chronicles the relationship Fowler developed with the award’s namesake in The King’s final years.

   Only one player from either the U.S. or GB&I sides at Merion in 2009 owns a major professional championship and that would be Brian Harman, who captured the title in The Open Championship in 2023 at Royal Liverpool Golf Club.

   The 39-year-old left-hander, a collegiate standout at Georgia, had another strong showing across the pond last summer, finishing in a tie for 10^th place in The Open Championship at Royal Portrush.

   Harman earned his fourth career PGA Tour title in April in the Valero Texas Open. He was typically consistent in 2025, making 20 cuts and 24 starts. Harman was one of the elite 30 players who teed it up in the season-ending Tour Championship at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

   It added up to more than $5.5 million in earnings that boosted the Georgia Bulldog’s career winnings on the PGA Tour to more than $43.6 million.

   Harman made the cut, because of course he did, and finished in a tie for 61^st place in opening his 2026 season in last week’s Sony Open.

   The real Bud Cauley finally reappeared in 2025 as it seemed the former Alabama standout was really back to himself after seven years of an agonizingly slow recovery from injuries he suffered in a car accident after he had missed the cut in The Memorial in Dublin,  Ohio in June of 2018.

   The 35-year-old Cauley made several comeback attempts following the accident, even making the FedEx Cup Playoffs in the wraparound 2019-2020 season. Buit he always knew he wasn’t right.

   Cauley had multiple surgeries in 2021 and 2022 in an attempt to repair the damage done to his body in the grinding accident.

   In 2025, Cauley made 17 cuts in 22 starts, earning in excess of $3.3 million. That raised his career winnings to just more than $13 million.

   Cauley had four top-10 finishes, including a tie for sixth against the toughest field in golf at The Players Championship at the Stadium Course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. Cauley reached the BMW Championship at Caves Valley in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Playoffs.

   I’m not even sure it’s the money that motivates Cauley. It’s more he knows what a good player he has always been. The money just validates that belief.

   Cauley opened his season by finishing in a tie for 24^th place in last week’s Sony Open. He’s become one of those guys whose name I always look for on PGA Tour leaderboards.

   When I did this update of the 2009 U.S. Walker Cup team early in 2019, it was the courageous battles being waged by Cauley, as he tried to recover from his devastating car accident, and Morgan Hoffmann, who had been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy in 2016, that I focused on.

   It took a year before the 36-year-old Hoffmann, a Franklin Lakes, N.J. native, revealed his diagnosis to the world after fighting through an atrophying chest wall to make the FedEx Playoffs.

   Hoffmann was the subject of tremendous story in Golf Digest, authored by Dan Rapaport, who found Hoffmann off a beaten trail in Costa Rica taking a holistic approach to battling a disease that has no cure.

   Hoffmann briefly returned to the PGA Tour in 2022 and made a couple of cuts, a tribute to his indomitable spirit.

   Hoffmann does not show up on the PGA Tour the last few years. He had started the Morgan Hoffmann Foundation to raise money in the search for a cure for muscular dystrophy.

   The guy has been an absolute inspiration in the way he has battled against as big a curveball as an athlete can be dealt in the prime of his career.

   Two members of the 2009 U.S. Walker Cup team, Peter Uihlein and Cameron Tringale, went the LIV Golf route.

   The 36-year-old Uihlein, the son of Wally Uihlein, the retired president and CEO of the Acushnet Company – you know, Titleist – is the third of a trio of Oklahoma State representatives on that U.S. Walker Cup team, along with Fowler and Hoffmann.

   I came away from that Walker Cup thinking Peter Uihlein possessed the most talent on the U.S. side. His victory in the 2010 U.S. Amateur at Chambers Bay seemed to validate that impression.

   Uihlein, though, has marched to beat of his own drummer in his professional golf journey. He played for several years on the European Tour before gaining status on the PGA Tour with a Korn Ferry Tour victory. He made more than $4 million on the PGA Tour.

   Uihlein was one of the first players to bolt for LIV. It seems Uihlein never wanted to be No. 1 in the world in golf, he just wants to see the world as a professional golfer.

   I’m not going to get into the pros and cons of LIV Golf, but it certainly seems to be a circuit made for Uihlein, who will once again be a member of the Range Goats along with Bubba Watson, Ben Campell and Matthew Wolff, another former Oklahoma State standout.

   The 38-year-old Tringale was a college standout at Georgia Tech. He was a successful on the PGA Tour, earning more than $17 million, he just couldn’t win. For a while he had the tag nobody wants: Most money won without a victory.

   Looks like Tringale’s HyFlyers, captained by Phil Mickelson, got a talented addition when Michael La Sasso, who captured the NCAA individual crown while with Mississippi last spring at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., decided to turn pro and join LIV Golf.

   Brendan Steele is the fourth member of the HyFlyers.

   By the way, La Sasso was one of those seven returning players from captain Smith’s winning U.S. team at Cypress Point who accepted an invitation for the practice session last month at Jupiter, Fla. Obviously, La Sasso is no longer a candidate for this year’s U.S. Walker Cup team.

   It appears Drew Weaver, the Virginia Tech standout who captured the title in the Royal & Ancient’s Amateur Championship in 2007 just weeks after being on campus during the deadliest mass shooting in American history, has moved on to the world of finance after many years laboring in professional golf’s minor leagues.

   Weaver, who captured the British Amateur crown at the Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s Golf Club, had been the last American to capture that prestigious title until Oklahoma State’s Ethan Fang won it last summer at Royal St. George’s Golf Club.

   Rounding out the 2009 U.S. Walker Cup side were Adam Mitchell, a teammate of Harman’s at Georgia, and Brendan Gielow, who was a collegiate standout at Wake Forest. Both moved on after brief forays in professional golf.

   Keep thinking one of those guys who didn’t make it in pro golf will show up as a reinstated amateur at a U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship, but it hasn’t happened yet.

   But, as I concluded this post a year ago, I’m sure Nathan Smith’s Walker Cup teammates at Merion will be rooting on him and his U.S. team in September.