This U.S. Walker Cup team might not have had the
incandescent talents of the 2017 team that rolled to a 19-7 victory over Great
Britain & Ireland at Los Angeles Country Club.
What captain Nathaniel Crosby’s U.S. team did have was grit,
an essential element in the makeup of a match-play competitor. And it was made
up of winners.
And winners win. That’s the simplest explanation for what
happened in the Sunday singles in the 47th Walker Cup Match at Royal
Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England as the U.S. stormed to wins in eight of
10 matches to wipe out an 8.5-7.5 deficit and claim a resounding 15.5-10.5
victory that enabled Team USA to retain the Cup.
It was the first U.S. victory away from home since the first
of captain George “Buddy” Marucci’s two teams claimed a dramatic win at Royal
County Down in 2007. And it was the most emphatic victory for the Stars &
Stripes across the pond since a 16.5-7.5 win in 1987 at Sunningdale Golf Club.
The U.S. team staged its comeback against a pretty solid
Great Britain & Ireland side. Captain Craig Watson’s GB&I team had
split the four opening foursomes matches and held a 7-5 lead following Day 1’s
12 matches after claiming five of the eight Saturday singles meetings.
But the U.S. team battled hard in all of those matches with
all four foursomes matches decided on the 17th hole and all but one
of the singles matches going to at least the 17th hole before being
decided.
Crosby seems to have cleared the biggest hurdle that faces
the captain of a U.S. team. He instilled a team atmosphere in a game that is
essentially an individual struggle. I got to witness Marucci do it a decade ago
when his U.S. team went back-to-back on Marucci’s home course, the historic
East Course at Merion Golf Club.
Rickie Fowler was probably the most talented player on that
2009 U.S. team, but he was also its heart and soul.
I’ve been a fan of John Augenstein ever since he willed
Vanderbilt to its first Southeastern Conference championship as a freshman in the
spring of 2017. It was the first year the SEC went to a match-play format to
mimic the challenge its teams might face should they advance to the match-play
portion of the NCAA Championship.
I’m not sure where Augenstein stood in the eyes of the USGA
people who pick the U.S. team when he arrived at Pinehurst last month for the
U.S. Amateur. But Augenstein made himself an obvious choice for the team when
he battled his way to the final before falling to Georgia Tech senior Andy
Ogletree in a tremendous final.
I’ll reiterate my kudos to captain Crosby from my Saturday
post for making the two U.S. Amateur finalists a team for foursomes matches.
They lost in their first foursomes match Saturday morning,
but Crosby kept them together and, with the U.S. battling from behind Sunday
morning, Augenstein, No. 14 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), and
Ogletree, No. 41 in the WAGR, pulled out a draw against a couple of tough
Scots, Euan Walker and Sandy Scott.
Watson had a similar dynamic working for him in that Walker,
No. 13 in the WAGR, had edged Scott, a senior at Texas Tech and No. 42 in the
WAGR, in a quarterfinal thriller on his way to a runnerup finish in The Amateur
Championship at Portmarnock.
Ogletree would come back in the afternoon with a 2 and 1
victory over England’s teen phenom Conor Gough, who just turned 17 and is No. 3
in the WAGR. Augenstein earned the clinching point with a 4 and 3 victory over
England’s Thomas Plumb and was typically succinct in summarizing the feelings
of himself and his teammates.
“I did not know that my match this afternoon was the
clinching point,” Augenstein told the USGA website. “I mean, it really doesn’t
matter who clinches it. The fact is that we’re a team and we won the Walker Cup
for each other and for the United States.”
Winners? Crosby, who played on the winning U.S. team in the
1983 Walker Cup Match at Royal Liverpool, had so many to choose from.
Brandon Wu, who led Stanford to a national championship as a
senior last spring and is No. 8 in the WAGR, and Alex Smalley, who led Duke on
an unlikely run to the NCAA semifinals as a junior in the spring of 2018 and is
No. 21 in the WAGR, got the U.S. comeback started with a 2 and 1 victory over
Alex Fitzpatrick, a sophomore at Wake Forest and No. 36 in the WAGR, and
GB&I’s veteran, 26-year-old Irishman Conor Purcell, who is No. 25 in the
WAGR.
Just as Crosby did with Augenstein and Ogletree, he kept
Stewart Hagestad, the veteran of the U.S. team, and Akshay Bhatia, the youngest
player to ever tee it up for a U.S. Walker Cup side, together even though they
had lost a Saturday morning foursomes match.
And this time Hagestad, winner of the 2016 U.S. Mid-Amateur
in an epic final at Stonewall and No. 7 in the WAGR, and Bhatia, the phenom who
is No. 5 in the WAGR, claimed a 3 and 2 victory over Harry Hall, who wrapped up
a standout college career at UNLV last spring, and Gough, Bhatia’s fellow teen
phenom.
Watson’s English duo of Tom Sloman and Plumb salvaged a full
point out of Sunday morning’s foursomes with a 5 and 3 victory over Texas
sophomore Cole Hammer, No. 1 in the WAGR, and Steven Fisk, who wrapped up a
standout college career at Georgia Southern with a runnerup finish in the NCAA
Championship’s individual chase.
But the U.S. had cut the two-point deficit it faced at the
beginning the day in half and trailed 8.5-7.5 heading into the afternoon
singles matches. And, by the end of the day, it was apparent that the momentum
had changed.
Wu’s teammate on Stanford’s national championship team,
Isaiah Salinda, No. 20 in the WAGR, kicked off the singles with a 2-up victory
over Fitzpatrick.
John Pak, the Atlantic Coast Conference champion as a
sophomore at Florida State last spring and No. 19 in the WAGR, claimed a 2 and
1 victory over Walker.
Wu, who played in all four sessions, suffered his only
setback of the weekend with a 4 and 3 defeat at the hands of Scott.
But Smalley, who also went 3-1 for the weekend, knocked off Ireland’s Caolan Rafferty, No. 37 in
the WAGR, and the singles rout was on.
Hagestad claimed a 5 and 3 victory over Hall and his foursomes
teammate Bhatia cruised to a 4 and 2 victory over Ireland’s James Sugrue, the
winner of The Amateur Championship at Portmarnock. Hammer, undoubtedly
frustrated by his 0-2 record, took it out on Purcell with a 6 and 5 victory.
And then there were Ogletree’s win over Gough and Augenstein
with the clincher over Plumb.
Sloman got the final point for GB&I with a 2-up victory
over Fisk.
Hammer and Bhatia aren’t as good as they are going to be.
They may appear in hindsight to be the stars of this team, but in the present, it’s obvious that Crosby had talent up and down his 10-man roster and used it
well.
I will also repeat a contention I have made several times in
the last few years, but it is increasingly obvious that the addition of match
play into the NCAA Championship has made the U.S. men’s and women’s collegians
better match-play competitors.
Augenstein, Hammer, Wu and Salinda all played in NCAA
Championship matches last spring and Smalley played in two rounds of matches in
the 2018 NCAA Championship.
The 2021 Walker Cup Match will return to the United States when
it is played at the iconic Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Fla. Crosby is a member
there. I’m guessing, much like Marucci’s two-term captaincy, Crosby will get to
captain a U.S. team on his home course. He certainly pushed all the right
buttons this weekend at Royal Liverpool.
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