[dropcap type=”circle”]I[/dropcap]t is three years in the future but if you’re a golf fan it’s no less exciting for that. In 2019 Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake will be the venue for the Walker Cup Match.
The 47th biennial contest that pits the amateurs of Great Britain and Ireland against those of the United States will be played in September of the year in which Royal Liverpool also celebrates the 150th anniversary of its foundation.
The return of the Walker Cup is a reminder of Hoylake’s pivotal role in the history of the amateur game. In 1921 the links were the setting for a match between the USA and Great Britain – a seed which blossomed into the Walker Cup proper in the following year when the first official match was played at the National Golf Links of America in Southampton, New York.
After World War I there was much discussion in the USA and Great Britain about ways of inspiring interest in the game on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1920 the USGA Executive Committee had been invited to Great Britain to meet with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. Among the American contingent was George Herbert Walker, USGA President.
When Walker and his colleagues returned home international team matches were discussed. The idea so appealed to Walker that he soon came up with a plan and offered to donate a trophy, and a magnificent one at that. He had been a low handicap player and was keen to promote the game. When the press dubbed the trophy the Walker Cup, the name stuck and the rest is history.
However, in 1921, when the USGA invited all golfing nations to send teams to compete for the Cup, no country was able to accept that year. The Americans didn’t abort their mission and William C. Fownes, the 1910 U.S. Amateur champion, who had twice assembled amateur teams that played against Canada in 1919 and 1920, rounded up a third team in the spring of 1921.
This team included Francis Ouimet (the kid from the wrong side of the tracks who had electrified America in 1913 with his US Open win), and Robert T. Jones (the legendary Bobby Jones who would win The Open at Hoylake in 1930). Also included was Charles ‘Chick’ Evans.
Their opposition was a British team captained by Robert Harris. Though the match, staged the day before the British Amateur, was informal, it was no doubt played to win, and the Americans emerged victorious, 9 and 3.
Encouraged in more ways than one the USGA arranged the first playing for the Walker Cup at the National Golf Links on Long Island, New York in 1922. After the 1938 contest World War Two interrupted proceedings until 1947, which is why the Match has ever since been staged every two years on an odd number.
The Walker Cup was last staged at Hoylake in 1983. Captained by Jay Sigel, the USA team beat Charlie Green’s GB&I team 13 ½ – 10 ½ .
Royal Liverpool is proud of its past and excited by the future. In 2019 the club will celebrate a 150 year contribution to the history of the game, reflect on the chapter that was written in 1921, and give a warm welcome to some of the finest amateur golfers in the world.
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