A week of sickness, slickness and 17
After a remarkable 48th Walker Cup, golfnews24 editor Mark Flanagan reflects on an amazing week at Seminole GC. We had sickness, some fantastic golfing drama and possibly the quickest greens we’ve ever seen.
History can be a cruel thing. Unfortunately for the 22 players who appeared in the 48th Walker Cup, this installment of the GB&I v USA golf showdown will be remembered primarily for the sickness bug that threatened the event itself and the golf course.
And also those greens. Those glassy, straw-coloured greens.
Because Seminole had never staged a major event before the wider golfing fraternity had not seen what all the fuss was about. Visually, at first glance, it’s wasn’t much to look at either. There is no major contouring that you associate with great courses and for an American links setting, hardly the spectacular scenery you associate with Pebble Beach or Cyprus Point.
There was no rugged shoreline to carve holes around but there were those greens and there was 17, a hole so demanding you wondered if it had been set up by Dick Dastardly. By early Sunday afternoon just finding the putting surface became an act so heroic, the watching George W Bush might have been inclined to hand out Purple Hearts to those who managed the feat.
The American commentators were struggling to find a suitable comparison, such was the brutality and slickness on show. One mentioned the 1987 Ryder Cup at Muirfield Village when a certain media hack famously compared those greens to the equivalent of putting off a car roof and trying to stop the ball on the bonnet.
At one point we were invited to consider we had reached 15 on the stint meter, a mythical figure even the normally-eloquent Paul Azinger seemed to struggle to comprehend…just like those long jump attendants at the 1968 Olympics trying to get their heads around Bob Beamon’s jump into immortality.
It made for compelling stuff and credit to many of those playing who put together decent scorecards, especially considering the majority battling away in the Florida heat, were not fully recovered from ‘gastrointestinal issues’.
The press release confirming the whispers came through at 2.19pm on Friday. The USGA would not say how many players were affected or how bad their conditions were. Then the media was left to try and work out if it was food poisoning or a virus. There was talk of some dodgy chicken but the event organisers were adamant it wasn’t food poisoning.
Whatever the reason, we had a change of rules and on Saturday morning Wiltshire’s Jake Bolton and Mac Meissner of the USA made history by becoming the first ‘alternates’ to appear. We had effectively gone from a 10-man team event to a 12-man battle and what a morning it was, Bolton setting the tone for the competition overall with a stunning approach from the driving range to seal a 1up victory alongside Surrey player Angus Flanagan.
The other winners that morning for the visitors were the all Ireland duo of Mark Power and John Murphy, who became stars of the show for GB&I. The only non Englishmen in the visiting ranks, they fused like a modern-day Olazabal and Ballesteros, carrying the hopes of a nation on their shoulders and bonded by something more than superficial friendship.
Power in particular was inspired. In the afternoon he went out first against Davis Thompson and incredibly went bogey free in winning 3&2.
The next morning they started birdie, birdie, eagle against Pierceson Coody and John Pak. It was exhilarating stuff, Murphy punching the air and roared after rolling in from eight feet for their third three on the trot. To the unitiated he could have been celebrating winning the Walker Cup such was unbridled delight on display.
On the opposing team the stand-out fist pumps were coming from the 20-year-old Californian Ricky Castillo, a player oozing so much class you began to wonder what he was doing out there. Shouldn’t he have been at Quail Hollow trying to keep up with a resurgent Rory?
Castillo went 4-0 and against Ben Schmidt on Saturday afternoon went bogey free and was six under par for his 15 holes. The teenager from Barnsley once again illustrated that, in this format, you can just get very unlucky by meeting the hottest opposing player. On Sunday he took on Cole Hammer, who was five under through 15. In matchplay the final score is only half the story.
Thankfully for those who watched every minute of the TV coverage, we will still remember the players more. They entertained us so royally and, in this country in particular, many of us will think of Alex Fitzpatrick and wonder how he managed to finish 0-4. We will probably also ponder whether Murphy and Power gave too much emotionally and physically in dragging their team up the mountain but then just didn’t have enough left in the tank to take them all the way to the top.
It was quite a ride all in all and fabulous to watch. The USA won 14-12, which felt like quite a wide margin at the end.
I can’t wait for St Andrews in 2023. You may be ‘The Home of Golf’ but you’ve got a big act to follow.
For all the scores from the 48th Walker Cup, click here