With just over six months until the golfing world shifts its focus from the pro game to the Walker Cup—one of the game’s purest events—at the legendary Cypress Point, the countdown is well and truly on.

Walker Cup expert and friend of the Jar, Darragh Garrahy, looks back on the 1971 match at St Andrews, where Michael Bonallack led a supposedly tame GB&I (or just GB, according to Golf World) to a stunning victory over a star-studded US side that hadn’t lost the cup since 1938.

”1971, when David beat Goliath”

words by Dr Darragh Garrahy

The 1971 Walker Cup was notable insofar as the American star studded team (Kite, Wadkins et al) were expected to run roughshod over GB&I, yet the hosts pulled off their first victory since 1938, against all odds over the Old Course at St. Andrews.

Golf World, in addition to failing to realise Ireland partake in the cup in their headline ‘Britain heading for a hiding?’, came out with double egg on their face after the unlikely result a few weeks later which still remains one of the true upsets in the blue riband event of golf.

Teddy Roosevelt, before he became President of the USA, was living in the badlands of Dakota, away from public life, trying to get over the death of his wife and mother which both happened on the same day. He got wind that a local cowboy was promising to riddle him with bullets over a land dispute. Teddy arrived to the cowboys house and opened with “I understand that you have threatened to kill me on sight. I have come over to see when you want to begin the killing.” The land dispute was over before it began; the cowboy was now a limpet on the back foot. Maybe team GB&I read the Golf World quote and decided a Teddy Roosevelt style of attack was needed, enabling them to whitewash the first mornings foursomes and gain a 4-0 lead. The top rated USA cowboys rifles jammed up and no killing occurred. The only heavy shot fired was an exocet 3-iron by David Marsh into the Road Hole which more or less sealed the cup.

Roosevelt’s cowboy was set up to fail after his declaration, and Golf World did the same to team USA. Making bold prophecies is part and parcel of selling media but previews of Walker Cups usually stay away from forecasting results and instead focus on venue, historical ties, the illustrious summers that have been had by members of both teams on amateur circuits and so forth. Maybe we can’t blame Golf World for their sub-heading as the strength of that USA team was exceptional.

The 2023 Walker Cup at the Old Course saw an American team with Gordon Sargent at its helm. Nick Dunlap wasn’t even the main attraction that week as Sargent’s ballstriking drew in crowds, but Dunlap went on to win on the PGA tour as an amateur, and again as a professional since then. Nothing much changes and the American Walker Cup squad for Cypress Point this September is headed by Luke Clanton who lays a solid claim to being one of the top 25 or so golfers in the world (he is ranked 93 in the OWGR as of 19^th February 2025 whilst being an amateur which beggars belief). Sargent will have turned professional by summer and maybe Clanton won’t be able to resist the lures of the pro scene either. But the equation for GB&I doesn’t change- American stars like Jackson Koivun and Ben James amongst others will make the task of GB&I registering a victory in California a formidable one.

Golf is a game where foibles can be truly magnified as Kite, Wadkins and the rest of team USA found out in 1971. Over a couple of days, with the variance of foursomes and the vagaries of matchplay, Goliath can fall, just as Tiger Woods and his Walker Cup team did in 1995. Thrashings and upsets happen but don’t expect this publication to make the end result and its prediction the most important element of the 2025 Walker Cup- there’s too much else to celebrate about an event at one of the world’s truly great courses, where the players are playing for free (cough, cough Team USA Ryder Cup) in the most Corinthian of spirits.

Words by Darragh Garrahy (@D_Garrahy)