A walk in the park, a walkover? Whatever you want to call it, this was a wonderful Walker Cup win for Great Britain & Ireland.
It was all done and dusted by 5pm. Or should that be Dunne and dusted? With six singles matches still battering away at various points on the Royal Lytham links, Paul Dunne’s half point against Maverick McNealy in the fourth tie of 10 pushed Nigel Edwards’s talented troops over the finishing line. They were almost queuing up to grab that clinching point, mind you, as the scoreboard turned bluer than some of the gags in a late night show at the end of Blackpool Pier.
At the close of business, the emphatic scoreline read GB&I 16 ½ USA 9 ½, a record margin of victory for the hosts in the history of the biennial battle. After the 17-9 thumping they received on American soil two years ago, this was a rousing redemption. “We said to each other at the start of the week that we wanted to do something special and we’ve done that,” said a jubilant team captain Edwards as he savoured his second Walker Cup victory in his third stint at the helm.
For the second day running, GB&I grabbed the early initiative in the foursomes – a format that remains the Achilles Heel of US teams - and won the session 3-1. Having been 7-5 ahead after Saturday’s showdowns, that profitable patch on a bright Sunday morn inched them into a 10-6 lead overall and left them needing just 3 ½ points to secure overall victory. “To have that cushion was huge for us,” added Edwards, after a pivotal session. Two matches - one involving Barassie’s Jack McDonald and playing partner Cormac Sharvin and the other featuring Dunne and Gary Hurley – both swung in GB&I’s favour on the last couple of holes just as the US were making menacing inroads. “Those boys really dug deep," said Edwards.
Of course, four point cushions going into the singles can be brittle. Remember what happened in the Ryder Cup during that Miracle at Medinah of 2012?
It was the Americans who needed the miracle here but the top order of GB&I ensured that those prayers would go unanswered. Ashley Chesters, the oldest player in the home side at a wily 26, took on the role of leading from the front superbly. In all four sessions, the double European champion from Sandy Lyle’s old club of Hawkstone Park was out in the top tie and racked up 3 ½ points from a possible four. His 3&1 win over Jordan Niebrugge put GB&I on their way. Two months ago, Niebrugge left St Andrews with the silver medal after sharing sixth in the Open. He left Lytham with nowt having lost all three of his matches.
Niebrugge’s colleagues were losing too. Sharvin, the Irishman who had combined to terrific effect with McDonald in the foursomes, made it three wins out of three as he swept aside the 52-year-old Mike McCoy by 4&3 to push GB&I ever nearer their target before England’s Jimmy Mullen took the home side to the brink of victory with a 3&2 defeat of Denny McCarthy. Tall and thin, the 21-year-old resembles a walking 1-iron. With a name like Jimmy Mullen he sounds like someone from Dennistoun, not Devon. Unsurprisingly, his dad is from Glasgow and Mullen junior’s services were offered to the Scottish Golf Union a few years ago. He was a driving force at Lytham this weekend and his perfect four out of four record was the first by a GB&I player since Luke Donald and Paul Casey both pitched in with a similar plunder at Nairn back in 1999. “As long as the team won, that was all that mattered but winning all four was just the icing on the cake,” said Mullen.
That gave Dunne, who led the Open heading into the final round but slithered away into a tie for 30th, the opportunity to put the US to the sword. He could have delivered the decisive blow but his birdie putt to win the match just drifted by. McNealy, the world No 2, had a five-footer to keep the entire contest alive but he too failed to convert. “I’ll take winning over finishing 30th in the Open any day,” said Dunne. The celebrations could begin even though there were half a dozen games to finish. The tenacious McDonald preserved his unbeaten record with a halved match with Lee McCoy while Grant Forrest fought back to beat Scott Harvey 2&1. Ewen Ferguson, a crucial singles winner on Saturday, went down on the last hole to Beau Hossler but that would not dampen the delight. Every player had contributed at least a point to the GB&I cause. It was a true team effort.
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