Grehan the GB&I elder statesman at Walker Cup
Stuart Grehan at the Amateur Championship at Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club (Photo by Alex Burstow/R&A/R&A via Getty Images)
In one sense, Stuart Grehan is ahead of schedule when he makes his Walker Cup debut for Great Britain and Ireland this weekend at Cypress Pont. Though there are regrets too he has had to wait until the 50th staging of amateur golf's prestigious team competition.
The Tullamore man made the 2017 GB&I team, but had to withdraw after breaking his arm playing soccer.
After six years as a professional, Grehan elected to return to the amateur ranks late 2024, but couldn't have dreamed his reintroduction would have gone so smoothly.
There have been wins in the Irish Amateur Close and the Irish Open Amateur, along with several high finishes to make him by far the oldest player on this year's side, aged 31.
“My initial target when I regained my amateur status was the 2026 Walker Cup at Lahinch,” Grehan told the R&A. “So in that sense I’m ahead of schedule. Everything has happened very quickly. Winning the Irish Amateur opened up a few doors and I’ve played well all summer really. I’m delighted with how it has gone."
There are no regrets about a professional life left behind.
“I have asked myself many times where I fell short as a pro,” he continues. “Did I think I was good enough? Absolutely. And I still think I am. I won on the EuroPro Tour and a couple of times elsewhere. And I featured a few times on the Challenge Tour. So it wasn’t as if I was missing cuts every week.
“But when I look at it all on a deeper level, it came down to me not being in love with the lifestyle. I just didn’t like being away constantly. Four or five weeks in a row away from my wife, Carla, and my son, Kai, was a struggle. But I’ve no regrets. I gave it a good go and learned so much from it all.”
The other Irish player on Dean Robertson's GB&I team is Louth's Gavin Tiernan, who studies psychology at East Tennessee State University, and will need to delve deep into that measured mindset this weekend.
“I try to be curious,” said Tiernan, who is the latest product of Golf Ireland’s High Performance programme.
“When I’m in between shots, I let my mind wander wherever it wants. I’m not trying to get ahead of myself in terms of performance but because I’m trying to be so relaxed on the course, I let my mind drift away from golf.
“Then once I get into it and up to the ball, that’s when it starts, your mind starts to narrow back in, and you don’t need to think about it.
“It’s so natural, when you get up to the ball, you start looking at where the pin is, how the ball is sitting, the wind direction and line.
“That’s just from playing so much and practicing, it becomes natural.”
His has been a phenomenal rise over the past 15 months, which began with a brilliant T6 finish at the Flogas Irish Men’s Amateur Open Championship in County Sligo in May.
He began that week with a blistering 65 and by the end of four rounds, the teenager had a World Amateur Golf Ranking. Tiernan went Stateside in the autumn for college and after a consistent campaign he closed it out with three top 20 finishes.
He was primed for an even better summer and didn’t disappoint, finishing third in the East of Ireland on his home course in Baltray.
