U.S. Defeats British, Irish in Walker Cup in Southampton

At the National Golf Links of America in Southampton over the weekend, the USA Team defeated Great Britain and Ireland, 17-9, to win the 44th Walker Cup Match.

“It’s something I have been wanting for a long, long time, particularly after we lost in 2011,” USA captain Jim Holtgrieve said. “I was hoping I would get a mulligan for ‘13 and when I knew it was going to be at National Golf Links, which is where it all started, I wanted so bad to come here. Yes. I wanted to win but I wanted to do something good for golf and this, to me, was truly good for golf.”

Holtgrieve was a very proud captain. “They all focused together,” he said of his team. “They all played together. They all worked together and they helped each other with their games. There were no individuals. It was a team.”

“They adapted to conditions a little bit better – the greens changed and there were very, very severe pin positions,” GB&I captain Nigel Edwards said of the USA. “They holed out a little bit better and I would say the short shots into the green, the distance control, that’s where they outdid us. When they did hit it over the back they got up and down and we didn’t.”

The Walker Cup Match is a men’s amateur team competition played every other year, with one squad from the USA and the other representing England, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales. It is named for George Herbert Walker, a former USGA president and the great-grandfather of President George W. Bush. Bush, wife Laura and daughter Jenna were among the guests at the match.

View photos from Saturday at the Walker Cup, with the Bushes, in the danspapers.com galleries.