Irish still searching for elusive US Amateur win

Irish golfers have won The Open five times, the US Open twice and the US PGA three times, not to mention nine British Amateur Championships.

But while the Masters continues to elude the men in green, so too does the US Amateur, which tees off at Olympia Fields in the Chicago suburbs today with Walker Cup hopefuls Paul Dunne, Cormac Sharvin and Gary Hurley hoping to show a watching skipper, Nigel Edwards, that they deserve places in his team.

Following his heroics in The Open at St Andrews, where he was joint leader with a round to go, 22-year old Greystones man Dunne received a special exemption from the United States Golf Association to join the already exempt West Waterford man Hurley and Ardglass golfer Sharvin in the 312-strong field.

While Ronan Rafferty took advantage of the 1981 Walker Cup matches in California to enter and reach the quarter-finals at Olympic Club that year, Joe Carr came closest to winning the title at Pebble Beach in 1961, following that year’s Walker Cup matches.

Having led The Open briefly in St Andrews in 1960 before the final round was washed out and cancelled, Carr’s poor individual record in the Walker Cup was being openly question by 1961.

He would more often than not find himself playing at No 1 for Great Britain and Ireland and as a result, lost more often than not to some of the leading Americans of the day.

According to his citation for the World Golf Hall of Fame, “there were selectors who did not let him forget it and, shortly before the 1961 match in Seattle the selectors in question, Gerald Micklem and Raymond Oppenheimer, sent a letter asking Carr if he would stand down and make way for younger men.

“A more-than-mildly irritated Carr, then 39, refused,” the citation ran.

“Carr laughingly recalls how, for the purposes of that match, he asked team captain Charles Lawrie if he could be played down the order for a change.

“Lawrie obliged and put him seventh, where his opponent turned out to be none other than Jack Nicklaus. Carr lost, 6 and 4.”

The US Amateur was played a week later at Pebble Beach and Nicklaus defeated Dudley Wysong in the final after Wysong had beaten Carr in the semi-finals.

When Carr got back to Ireland, he penned a newspaper article in which he described Nicklaus as “the best player the world will ever see.”

What stars will emerge from this week’s US Amateur remain to be seen, but Great Britain and Ireland skipper Edwards will be hoping they are from his side of the pond as he prepares for next month’s matches at Royal Lytham and St Annes.

While Dunne and Sharvin are regarded by most observers as certainties to be named in the 10-man team this day next week with Gavin Moynihan, Hurley’s brilliant runner up finish in the European Amateur Championship in Slovakia may well have been enough for him also while Naas’ Jack Hume could bring the tally to a record five.

Whatever Edwards and his selectors decide, Hurley is in Chicago chasing what would be his first big win and the reward of places in next year’s US Open and Open Championships, not to mention a likely Masters invitation, should he choose to remain amateur.