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 18,000 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 six 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.