GARY Wolstenholme could blether on about the Walker Cup until the cows come home. And if that herd did eventually shuffle home mid-conversation, he would probably shoo them away again until he had finished pondering and pontificating.
As Great Britain & Ireland’s most successful Walker Cup campaigner, Wolstenholme’s passion for the biennial bout knows no bounds. Next weekend, it will be the current crop of amateurs from these islands who will be going toe-to-toe with their American counterparts at Royal Lytham.
Having turned professional at the sprightly age of 48 after achieving just about all that there is to achieve in the unpaid ranks, Wolstenholme’s record of six Walker Cup appearances is unlikely to be beaten in an era when the amateur to professional turnover happens with the churning regularity of an industrial conveyor belt.
Now 55, and with three wins on the European Senior Tour to his name, Wolstenholme is well aware that the Walker Cup has changed down the years. The young ’uns these days won’t necessarily hang around to play in even one when the lure of the pro game continues to warble seductively like a siren on a rocky outcrop.
At Lytham next weekend, Nigel Edwards, the fiery, competitive Welshman, will skipper GB&I for a third successive time but in future years, Wolstenholme sees no reason why some of the decorated names from the professional scene could not roll on the captain’s armband.
“Could we pick a pro?” he pondered before immediately name dropping Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington, two global greats who racked up five Walker Cup appearances between them during their amateur days.
“I tell you, if you got someone like Padraig it would be awesome. It would be a fillip for everybody. I mean the players would be hugely respectful and Padraig would love to do it. If he was asked he’d grab it with both hands. Monty would too, I’m sure. That would be brilliant and maybe the Americans could follow suit? Imagine Harrington and perhaps Fred Couples as captains of each side? The interest would be through the roof.”
Given that Edwards is in his third stint as skipper, there have been regular mutterings that GB&I are running out of captains. Wolstenholme is having none of that. “Craig Watson, give him a chance, he captained Scotland brilliantly,” he said of the former Amateur champion from Glasgow. “There’s Stuart Wilson, Jim Milligan. We’ve already named three Scots just there.”
It is now 10 years since Wolstenholme made his final Walker Cup appearance in the narrow defeat to the USA at the Chicago Club. A decade earlier, GB&I’s record points scorer made his debut in the transatlantic tussle at Porthcawl against a visiting side that featured Tiger Woods. At the time, Wolstenholme wasn’t a long hitter but possessed the kind of steady, consistent accuracy of a knife thrower. Woods was a 19-year-old superstar in the making who was long and occasionally wild.
“He did put it out of bounds three times,” recalled Wolstenholme with a smile as he reflected on the opening day singles match that pitted this contrasting pair together and ended with the Englishman winning by one hole. “I don’t think he was very pleased that a lowly, middle aged golfer who couldn’t hit it out of his shadow managed to beat him. Tiger was, undoubtedly, the world’s best amateur golfer. I beat him once but that’s what everyone will remember me for. It will be on my tombstone.”
For much of his Walker Cup career, Wolstenholme was the auld yin, the respected general both on and off the course. Next weekend, the oldest player in the GB&I team will be European champion Ashley Chesters, who is 26. The rest are between 19 and 22 and most have professional ambitions.
“The Walker Cup now is a one off,” said Wolstenholme. “You might play two if you are lucky. So all the little records I’ve set are unlikely to be beaten, which I’m proud of.”
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