Following our recent podcast with Walker Cup legend Nigel Edwards, our very own Walker Cup correspondent and self-proclaimed Professor of Pace Putting – Dr Darragh Garrahy – took to his library and did some more digging on the 38th playing of The Walker Cup at Ocean Forest.
‘Ocean’s Thirty Eight‘
words by Darragh Garrahy A.K.A ‘Dr Lag’
The Lindy Effect
Something called the Lindy Effect theorizes that the longer a non-perishable item is around, the more sure their future is- if a golf course has been around 50 years it is likely to survive another 50. Maybe The Old Course at St. Andrews is the best example of this- it doesn’t feel like the land will be returned to grazing anytime soon. The most celebrated championship sites in golf are also the most venerable. The USGA have developed cornerstone anchor sites for championships as competitors and fans want the best events on tried and tested venues and perhaps recent less memorable forays into sites for the US Open like Erin Hills and Chambers Bay were the stimulus for the anchor site idea. Venues matter; part of the melancholy surrounding Rory McIlroy’s failure to catch Cameron Smith at St. Andrews in 2022 was because we know Rory will only have a few more chances to raise the Claret Jug at the home of golf.
The Walker Cup is played on the games truly greatest courses in America and GB&I. Unshackled by the logistics of hosting large crowds and commercial concerns, it can ‘cherry-pick’ the most coveted venues. A browse of previous host venues speaks volumes, not to mention the next two host venues see a return to Cypress Point in 2025 followed by Lahinch hosting for the first time in 2026. Lahinch will be 134 years old when the best amateurs get to scratch their frontal lobes at how best to tackle the back to back blindness of the Klondkye and Dell holes (4th and 5th). Fighting to host an event like the Walker Cup is to enter rarefied air. Which makes the 38th Walker Cup an interesting outlier.
The Anorak
The author (‘The Anorak’) of this piece has amassed a collection of Walker Cup paraphernalia that he loves dearly. The woman (‘The Central Power’) he lives with would hold a much dimmer view of the space-occupying books, flags and assorted ephemera.
The Anorak came upon the knowledge that Ocean Forest Golf Club (part of the Sea Island, Georgia resort), host of the 38th Walker cup in 2001, had published a substantial book on their hosting. This seemed unusual. Occasionally a brochure or review article are produced after the event by a club but usually nothing extensive. This book by Ocean Forest was procured by The Anorak and snuck past The Central Power. ‘There must have been a spur for producing such a book’, I thought.
Pulling back the cover on it showed the course had only been opened in 1995, six years before the opening tee shot in the 2001 Walker Cup! It’s almost incomprehensible to consider a course so young and untested getting such an event. The first game played on Ocean Forest in 1995 included President George H.W. Bush whose maternal grandfather – Herbert Walker – is whom the event is named after. So perhaps some of the influence in gently aiding the negotiations that brought the cup to Sea Island in an announcement less than a year after it opened, came from this link. George H.W had also honeymooned at Sea Island in 1945.
Even NGLA who hosted the 1st Walker Cup in 1922 was 13 years old at the time, and while the cup will be hosted at Bandon Dunes in 2028, it will be 29 years old and hosted the US Amateur (2020) and many more championships by then.
Excerpts
I am glad that Ocean Forest – perhaps owing to their unusual youth (and maybe a need to puff out their chest in a long line of more assured host venues?) – took the time to commit to posterity in such detail the events of the 38th Walker Cup. The 180 page book gives substantial background on the links between Georgia and the Walker Cup (Bobby Jones not least of all), the building of the course with some great construction photos, a course tour, and great detail on the event itself. Almost 30 pages of the book detail the match events and at the end of this article are some excerpts. The acknowledgements page at the start of the book ends with a quote about silver-salt cellars which tickled me:
An in-depth review of the book is not necessary except suffice to say that I think Ocean Forest holds a unique position in hosting a Walker Cup six years after opening for golf, something that will unlikely ever happen again, and their production of a book which is the most detailed – and maybe only – standalone book on a single iteration of the Walker Cup that exists.
The Sea Island resort was founded by A.W Jones in 1928 and his grandson Bill Jones III was the catalyst for building the Ocean Forest course during his time in charge of the resort. The resort went bankrupt in 2010 and the family sold it. Readers will most likely know the Sea Island resort for its hosting of the RSM classic at its Plantation Course every November on the PGA tour (on my TV in front of me as I type on this dispatch), but the circumstances of the 38th Walker Cup at its lesser known Ocean Forest course in its sheer infancy and the ensuing commemorative book are more than interesting asides in the history of the resort.
