With one last Hill to climb, Great Britain & Ireland stuns the U.S. to end its Walker Cup drought

 

   Great Britain & Ireland’s comeback from a 9.5-6.5 deficit following the Sunday morning foursome matches to pull out a 13.5-12.5 victory and claim the Walker Cup for the first time in nearly a decade had to be seen to be believed.

   And since I didn’t see it, I’m still not sure I believe it. 

   I headed to Stonewall for a Sunday morning loop fairly certain that the United States, under captain Nathan Smith, the match-play maestro from Pittsburgh, was well on its way to a sixth straight victory in the Walker Cup Match at Lahinch Golf Club in County Clare on the Republic of Ireland’s scenic west coast.

   The U.S. had just completed a dominant sweep of the foursome matches to turn a 6.5-5.5 deficit into a three-point lead. The U.S. never dominates foursomes, well hardly ever.

   They were so focused and looked so determined.

   Symbolic of their domination was the scud missile Oklahoma State senior Preston Stout, the No. 1 player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) dropped three feet from the hole at the 257-yard, par-4 13^th hole with a freaking driver.

   Stout’s partner and Oklahoma State teammate Ethan Fang, No. 9 in the WAGR, easily converted the eagle try and the two Cowboys were on their way to a 3 and 2 victory over Irishman Stuart Grehan, the winner of the Royal & Ancient’s Amateur Championship earlier this summer at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club and No. 28 in the WAGR, and Englishman Eliot Baker, No. 13 in the WAGR.

   The U.S. has historically been stronger in singles than the unfamiliar alternate-shot foursomes format. So, when the Red, White & Blue dominated the foursomes Sunday morning, it seemed possible that our boys could play average golf in the singles and still pull this thing out.

   I got home from my loop just in time to see GB&I celebrating an unlikely comeback and a Walker Cup victory. Hey, I have Irish roots. We know how to celebrate.

   GB&I, under captain David Robertson, completely flipped the script.

   I mentioned following Day 1 of this 51^st Walker Cup Match that this felt different than the last five editions that the Americans had won.

   GB&I had won the Saturday morning foursomes, 3.5-2.5, and split the eight Saturday singles matches to take a 6.5-5.5 lead into Day 2.

   It just looked like the U.S. trusted its considerable talent in the Sunday morning foursomes. Surely, that wasn’t going to go away over a bite of lunch.

   The main thing that was different about this GB&I team was its talent, particularly its depth of talent. Following the Sunday morning wipeout, GB&I didn’t get mad, it got even, in a big way.

   The anatomy of a comeback like this always begins at the beginning. You have to pile up some early wins. In addition to earning you points, it gives you belief.

   Grehan, the Irishman who had been so good in earning a point-and-a-half for GB&I Saturday, went out and defeated the No. 1 amateur player in the world in Stout, 2 and 1. Game on.

   Englishman Luke Poulter, a senior at Florida and No. 8 in the WAGR, did his best imitation of his dad, U.S. Ryder Cup nemesis Ian Poulter, in a 3 and 1 victory over Fang.

   Thought maybe Robertson under-utilized Englishman Jack Whaley, No. 45 in the WAGR,  after he got on a serious roll to capture the U.S. Amateur at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course last month.

   Maybe the Florida State standout thought so, too, as he dismantled a pretty good player in Alabama sophomore William Jennings, the runnerup in the NCAA Championship at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. in the spring and No. 4 in the WAGR, with an 8 and 7 beatdown.

   Whaley’s fellow Seminole and fellow Englishman, Tyler Weaver, No. 3 in the WAGR, despite being sidelined for much of the summer with injury, rolled to a 4 and 3 victory over Stanford junior Jay Leng Jr., the runnerup to Whaley at Merion and No. 12 in the WAGR.

   Suddenly, GB&I had a 10.5-9.5 lead and the golf-mad Irish fans, stunned into silence in the morning, were seeing some blood in the water.

   Brigham Young sophomore Kihei Akina, No. 11 in the WAGR, temporarily stopped the bleeding by battling Englishman Niall Sheils Donegan, a senior at North Carolina and No. 18 in the WAGR, to a draw, earning the U.S. a half-point.

   But then Baker, like Sheils Donegan, like Graham, a veteran of GBI’s loss to the U.S. in the Walker Cup Match a year ago at The Cypress Point Club, the iconic Alister Mackenzie layout on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula, birdied the par-5 18^th hole to edge Stewart Hagestad, the 35-year-old veteran of all five of the most recent Walker Cup wins for the U.S., 1-up.

   It’s been 10 years since Hagestad won the first of his three U.S. Mid-Amateur crowns at Stonewall. He has been a stalwart on the U.S. Walker Cup team, compiling a 7-1 record in singles before falling to Baker.

   And maybe with his defeat, the air of invincibility for the U.S. side was suddenly gone.

   In the back end of the lineup, the U.S. was pulling out a pair of victories as Oklahoma senior Ryder Cowan, No. 6 in the WAGR, closed out Englishman Ben Bolton, No. 86 in the WAGR, 3 and 2, and Auburn senior Josiah Gilbert, No. 7 in the WAGR, bounced back from a tough go Saturday with a 4 and 3 victory over Englishman Sam Easterbrook, a senior at Purdue and No. 76 in the WAGR.

   The U.S. had 12 points with only 13 needed to retain the Walker Cup with a draw.

   But the talented teens for the U.S., Miles Russell, the 17-year-old who is No. 5 in the WAGR, and Tyler Watts, the 18-year-old who is No. 2 in the WAGR, couldn’t get the visitors across the finish line.

   Scotland’s Connor Graham, a junior at Texas Tech and No. 26 in the WAGR, was one of the leaders of this GB&I team, despite being only 19. He was the youngest player to tee it up in a Walker Cup Match ever when he represented GB&I at the Old Course at St. Andrews in his native Scotland at just 16 in 2023.

   Graham made back-to-back birdies on the 17^th and 18^th holes to earn an all-important half-point for GBI by getting a draw with Russell. Each team had 12.5 points.

   It was left to Englishman Josh Hill, one of the least-heralded members of the GBI team, to play the hero.

   Hill wrapped up his career at Tennessee in the spring. The Volunteers can barely stand the wait as Watts is about to join their program.

   But it was Hill who had the answer on the 18^th hole at Lahinch. He blasted it out of a bunker in front of the par-5 finishing hole to three feet and rolled in the birdie putt to edge Watts, 1-up, and set off a wild celebration.

   Let’s face it, GB&I was due. It had one of its most talented rosters and the home-course advantage at Lahinch.

   The Brits and the Irish and the Scots and the Welsh who make up the GB&I team care way more about the Walker Cup than we do in the States. If we had won, it would have been a yawn in the U.S. and an “of course we beat GB&I, we always beat GB&I.”

   But our guys that made up the U.S. team cared. It’s one of those events that makes you care deeply when you’re in the middle of it. Life-long friendships are forged. Hagestad has seen some incredibly talented players raise the U.S. flag at six Walker Cup opening ceremonies.

   Smith, Pennsylvania's high school champion as a sophomore at Brookville in 1994, has packed a lifetime of golf memories into a compacted single year in which two Walker Cups were contested with him as the U.S. captain.

   But it’s match play, which is as much about grit as it is talent. And on this day, in 10 singles matches, GB&I was the better team and created some Walker Cup magic that will be talked about for a long, long time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

U.S. trails Great Britain & Ireland following Day 1 at Lahinch, but Russell and Watts get their point across

 

   At some point this week as his United States team prepared for the 51^st Walker Cup Match at Lahinch Golf Club in County Clare on the west coast of the Republic of Ireland, captain Nathan Smith came to the realization that it made perfect sense to pair his two teen-age phenoms as a foursome team.

   The two left-handers, Miles Russell, the 17-year-old from Jacksonville Beach, Fla., and Tyler Watts, the 18-year-old from Huntsville, Ala. who will join the program at Tennessee when his Walker Cup duties are completed, are just that good.

   Russell is No. 5 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) and lost in the final of the U.S. Junior Amateur at Saucon Valley Country Club this summer.

   Watched Watts, No. 8 in the WAGR, battle eventual runnerup Jay Leng Jr. in the round of 16 last month in the U.S. Amateur at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course. Watts lost, but his game, his demeanor, his competitiveness couldn’t have been more impressive.

   Russell and Watts validated the decision by Smith, the Pittsburgh native and a four-time winner of the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship, to put them together in a Saturday morning foursome match against Great Britain & Ireland.

   They jumped out to a 3-up advantage over Englishmen Luke Poulter, a senior at Florida and No. 8 in the WAGR, and Sam Easterbrook, a senior at Purdue and No. 76 in the WAGR, only to see Poulter and Easterbrook battle back to send the match to the 18^th tee all tied up.

   If playing in an opening-session foursome match on foreign soil against the son of Ian Poulter was ever going to rattle a couple of teen-agers, this would be the time.

   But nah. The two kids calmly made a birdie at Lahinch’s par-5 finishing hole to earn the only full point the Stars & Stripes would get out of the opening session with their 1-up victory.

   Maybe their lack of experience showed up a little in the afternoon singles as Poulter got a bit of revenge with a 2 and 1 victory over Russell and Watts dropped a 3 and 2 decision to Scotland’s Niall Sheils Donegan, a senior at North Carolina and No. 18 in the WAGR.

   You probably remember Sheils Donegan, whose family moved to the Bay Area when he was 3-years-old, as the guy who made a memorable run to the semifinals of last summer’s U.S. Amateur at The Olympic Club in San Francisco.

   GB&I had grabbed a 3.5-2.5 lead following the morning foursome session and then split the eight singles matches in the afternoon and will take a 6.5-5.5 lead into Sunday morning’s foursome session.

   The U.S. has rattled off five straight victories in this series dating back to 2017, but this one feels a little different.

   GB&I is always tough on its home soil and Lahinch looked like a difficult puzzle to solve for the visiting U.S. team. The morning foursomes were blessedly broadcast on The Golf Channel and the Lahinch I’ve heard so much about didn’t disappoint.

   And this team, under captain Dean Robertson, just might be the most talented side GB&I has fielded in a while.

   GB&I’s best player Saturday just might have been its lone Irishman, 33-year-old Stuart Grehan.

   Grehan is a reinstated amateur who played on the GB&I team that fell to the U.S. a year ago at The Cypress Point Club, the iconic layout on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula.

   The Walker Cup Match is normally a biennial affair, but it came back just a year later this year in order to synch it with the women’s Curtis Cup Match in even years and leave the odd years for the World Amateur Team Championship.

   Grehan’s victory in the Royal & Ancient’s Amateur Championship this summer at Royal Liverpool Golf Club has him up to No. 28 in the WAGR. And an Irishman playing in a Walker Cup Match in Ireland, well, you know that it’s pretty special for him.

   And, truth be told, with the majority of the 8,000 golf-mad fans rooting on their native son, it’s one of the many reasons the Walker Cup is so special, too.

   Grehan was paired with Englishman Eliot Baker, another veteran of last year’s Walker Cup Match at Cypress Point, in the opening foursome match Saturday morning, and the team grabbed a half-point when Oklahoma State senior Preston Stout, who inherited the No. 1 spot in the WAGR when Jackson Koivun turned pro earlier this summer, missed a makeable birdie putt at the 18^th hole that would have given the U.S. a full point.

   Smith’s leadoff pairing of Stout and his Oklahoma State teammate, Ethan Fang, made even more sense than the teen twosome of Russell and Watts.

   Stout and Fang were members of the winning U.S. team at Cypress Point a year ago and Fang is a proven commodity on the other side of the pond, as he became the first American to win The Amateur Championship since 2007 last summer at Royal St. George’s Golf Club.

   Oh yeah, Stout and Fang also helped the Cowboys capture the program’s 12^th national championship in the spring of 2025 at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.

   Grehan capped his memorable day by gutting out a 1-up decision over Stout in the first singles match of the afternoon.

   The U.S. got on a little roll in the middle of the afternoon singles as Fang knocked off Englishman Jack Whaley, the winner of the U.S. Amateur at Merion last month and No. 45 in the WAGR, 1-up, Alabama junior William Jennings, No. 4 in the WAGR, pulled out a 1-up decision over Scotland’s Connor Graham, the Texas Tech junior playing in his third Walker Cup Match and No. 25 in the WAGR, Leng, the Stanford junior who was the beaten finalist in the U.S. Amateur at Merion and is No. 12 in the WAGR, earned a 2 and 1 win over Englishman Tyler Weaver, a senior at Florida State and No. 3 in the WAGR, and Stewart Hagestad, the grizzled veteran at 35 of all five of those most recent U.S. Walker Cup wins, claimed a 2 and 1 verdict over 19-year-old Englishman Ben Bolton.

   But GB&I battled back with Poulter’s win over Russell, Sheils Donegan’s victory over Watts and Baker earning a 3 and 2 victory over Auburn senior Josiah Gilbert, who is No. 7 in the WAGR.

   It was a tough day for Gilbert as he and Oklahoma senior Ryder Cowan, who is No. 6 in the WAGR, suffered a 4 and 3 setback at the hands of Sheils Donegan and Englishman Josh Hill, who wrapped up his college career at Tennessee in the spring, in a morning foursome match.

   The formidable GB&I pair of Graham and Weaver accounted for the other full point for the home side in the morning foursome matches with a 1-up victory over Leng and Brigham Young sophomore Kihei Akina, who is No. 11 in the WAGR.

   Smith will keep his teen tandem of Russell and Watts together for the Sunday morning foursome matches and they’ll take on Graham and Weaver.

   If you’ve got an early tee time Sunday, I would highly recommend getting up a little early to watch some of that match. The next time you see Russell and Watts playing together in a foursome match will probably be in some Ryder Cup in six years or so.

 

 

 

Mohn finishes strong to earn a Philly Junior Tour victory at Coatesville

 

   Josh Mohn, a Wilmington, Del. resident and a senior at St. Mark’s, carded a solid 1-under-par 70 at Coatesville Country Club to capture a Philadelphia Section PGA Junior Tour victory in the 16-to-18 division Aug. 12^th.

   Mohn, who finished in third place in the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association (DIAA) Championship at Baywood Greens in May, made birdies at the 11^th, 14^th and 15^th holes and had 13 pars on his scorecard, including a stretch from three through 10 in which he made eight consecutive pars.

   Mohn’s birdie binge enabled him to tour the incoming nine at Coatesville in 2-under 34.

   Mohn was coming off a tie for third place a day earlier in the Harry Hammond Invitational, one of the Philly Junior Tour’s major championships, at Penn Oaks Golf Club.

   Mohn finished a shot ahead of another Wilmington, Del. guy, Kie Shaw, a senior at the Delaware Military Academy who made a birdie at the 13^th hole and had 16 pars on his card, including 12 straight pars to open his round, as he matched par at Coatesville with a 71.

   Shaw finished in a tie for fifth place in the DIAA Championship at Baywood Greens in the spring.

   Braydon Jakatt, a senior on the Coatesville golf team playing close to home, and Vaughn Smartt of Bryn Mawr shared third place, each posting a 5-over 76.

   Jakatt made a birdie at the eighth hole and had 12 pars on his card, including a string of five straight pars from three through seven. Smartt had 13 pars on his card, finishing up his round with seven straight pars.

   Three players finished in a tie for fifth place at 79, including Mason Stephan, a Collegeville resident and a senior on the Malvern Prep golf team, Julian Frustaci, a Haverford resident and a senior on the St. Joseph’s Prep golf team, and Chris Cipollone, who wrapped up his scholastic career at Haverford High last fall.

   Chase Schmidt of Waterford, N.J. took eighth place with an 80 and Morgan Thompson, a senior on the Phoenixville golf team, finished ninth with an 81.

   Rounding out the top 10 in the 16-to-18 division were Bobby Ross of West Chester and Matthew Wisler of Dover, Del. as they finished in a tie for 10^th place, each signing for an 82.

   Thayer Boyd of Kennett Square and Ruben Yoon, a Wilmington, Del. resident and a sophomore on the Archmere Academy golf team, shared top honors in the 13-to-15 division as each recorded a 4-over 75.

   Boyd made a birdie at the second hole and had 12 pars on his scorecard, including a run of five straight pars from eight through 12.

   Yoon caught fire at the end of his round, rattling off consecutive birdies at the 15^th, 16^th, 17^th and 18^th holes. He also had six pars on his card.

   Jack Ferry of Port Deposit, Md. made birdies at the third and 15^th holes and had nine pars on his card as he finished a shot behind Boyd and Yoon in third place with a 5-over 76.

   Noah Gates, a sophomore on the Haverford High golf team, took fourth place with a 78, Grayson McCann of Downingtown was fifth with a 79, Victor Sage of Broomall was sixth with an 80 and Harry Nepereny of Devon and Matthew Pilcher of Wilmington, Del. finished in a tie for seventh place, each registering an 81.

   Michael Perry, another Wilmington, Del. guy, took ninth place with an 83 and the pair of M.J. Nestor of Greenville, Del. and Charlie Murray of Berwyn rounded out the top 10 in the 13-to-15 division as they finished in a tie for 10^th, each tallying an 85.

   The best score among the girls came out of the 13-to-15 division as Shree Desai, taking a road trip from Cinnaminson, N.J., made a birdie at the 11^th hole and had two pars on her scorecard to claim a Philly Junior Tour victory with a 91.

   Mae Racowski of Newtown Square made a par at the 11^th hole as she earned runnerup honors with a 99.

   Naaya Patel of Moorestown, N.J. had four pars on her card, including back-to-back pars at the sixth and seventh holes, as she finished in third place with a 100.

   Rounding out the field in the 13-to-15 division was Emily Milito, a Coatesville resident playing close to home, as she finished in fourth place with a 105.

   Erin Urbanski, a West Chester resident and a junior on the Villa Maria golf team, was the lone entry in the 16-to-18 division and she finished up her round with a birdie at the 18^th hole and also had two pars on her scorecard on her way to a 101.

   Niko Muego of Bryn Mawr has been one of the top performers among the boys 12-and-under nine-holers all summer long and he rattled off consecutive birdies at the sixth, seventh and eighth holes and had three pars on his scorecard as he claimed another Philly Junior Tour victory with a 1-over 36.

   Dino Luccia of North Wales and Kash Gray of Eagleville shared runnerup honors as each finished three shots behind Muego with a 4-over 39.

   Luccia had five pars on his card, opening his round with consecutive pars at the first, second and third holes. Gray had six pars on his card, including a string of three straight pars of his own at the third, fourth and fifth holes.

   Joey Charpentier of Schwenksville, coming off a Philly Junior Tour victory the previous week at Paxon Hollow Country Club, and Victor Wang of Hockessin, Del. shared fourth place, each posting a 40.

   Grayson Wright of Philadelphia took sixth place with a 42, Jack Kolmer of Wayne was seventh with a 43 and Landon Post of Lincoln University and Lorenzo Carbonel of Mount Joy finished in a tie for eighth, each signing for a 44.

   Bennett Cho of Chesterbrook took 10^th place with a 46 and Mason Kelly of Wyncote rounded out the field in the boys 12-and-under division as he finished 11^th with a 60.

   Lauryn Kirby of Chester Springs made pars at the second and sixth holes as she bested a short field of girls 12-and-under nine-holers with a 49.

   Juniper Ha of Royersford rounded out the field in the girls 12-and-under division as she finished in second place with a 64.