'The boys have delivered': And after all, Josh Hill was Great Britain & Ireland’s Walker Cup wonderwall
Team Great Britain & Ireland celebrate with the Walker Cup. Pic: ©INPHO/Ben Brady.
Great Britain & Ireland’s jubilant Walker Cup-winning team signed off, in public at least, by closing their victory press conference with a chorus of “Wonderwall” in the media centre on Sunday night following their stunning 13.5-12.5 success over the United States.
Hardly an original song choice for a sports team but the rousing Oasis classic had been a touchstone for Dean Robertson’s GB&I team as they stared into the abyss of what looked odds-on to be another painful defeat to USA after a disastrous foursomes session at Lahinch just eight hours previously.
Whitewashed 4-0 by a stacked American line-up in the alternate shot format, GB&I had succumbed to a first Walker Cup foursomes clean sweep in a session since 2007 at Royal County Down when even Rory McIlroy and his compatriot Jonathan Caldwell were beaten 2&1 by Billy Horschel and Rickie Fowler as GB&I finished the morning 10-6 down.
Just as in those 41st matches between the transatlantic rivals, GB&I staged a determined rally, McIlroy avenging Horschel with a 4&2 win in the lead-off singles match that Sunday afternoon at RCD and Caldwell downing Kyle Stanley 2Up further down the order as the team won the session 5.5-2.5. Only it was not enough 19 years ago, and the Americans clung on for a 12.5-11.5 victory.
On this Sunday, at Lahinch, though, as GB&I saw their one-point Saturday night overturned in impressive fashion to trail 9.5-6.5, the team rallied even stronger, sparked by the morale-boosting sing-song as captain Robertson told reporters his boys still had a chance if they were prepared to take their chances and could gather some early momentum.
Robertson turned to his most experienced player and Ireland’s sole representative on this 2026 team Stuart Grehan to ignite the GB&I fuse and energise a sodden and demoralised crowd. The British Amateur champion out of Co. Louth duly responded. Eventually.
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The 33-year-old former pro had given his all to take down world number Preston Stout in his Saturday singles match and the experience had wiped him out, he freely admitted.
Grehan, locking horns once again with Stout for the fourth session in a row, duly lost the opening hole in the first singles match out on Sunday and was 2Down after four, but with Robertson at his side throughout he summoned the energy to inspire his team-mates with a come-from-behind 2&1 victory.
England’s US Amateur champion Jack Whaley demolished world number four William Jennings 8&7 while wins for Luke Poulter and Tyler Weaver saw GB&I claim the first four points of the afternoon and wipe out the visitors’ lead. Yet the USA still need just 3.5 more points to retain the Walker Cup with a draw, while the home team were three points shy of winning with six left on the table.
With the last two matches of the afternoon going the way of the Americans it was the middle order that needed to deliver for GB&I and with England’s Eliot Baker defeating five-time winner Stewart Hagestad, Scottish duo Niall Sheils Donegan and Connor Graham each scrapped their way to hard-earned yet invaluable half points.
One point to go and it needed a victory from the last match left on the Old Course. Englishman Josh Hill, the lowest ranked player on either side at No.93 went to the par-five last All Square with world number two Tyler Watts and the 22-year-old produced the shot of his young life with a long greenside bunker shot to inside four feet. Watts had to settle for par, leaving Hill with a short putt that was far from simple.
There had been murmurings about Robertson’s selection of Hill over Irish international Thomas Higgins but the skipper was vindicated when that putt dropped and Lahinch erupted in delight.
“The South of Ireland most definitely cemented my thoughts,” Robertson said of the selection. “When I spoke to his coach at Tennessee, Brennan (Webb), who was the coach for the Palmer Cup team, I knew he had a desire to come and be a part of the Walker Cup.
“He went from La Costa (after the US NCAA championships in June) all the way to St Andrews to play in the St Andrews Links (Trophy), upside down in terms of time. Watched (him in) some of the Amateur Championship, and we came and had a training camp here (at Lahinch) just prior to the South of Ireland.
“Josh's personality was huge. What he brings to a team environment was huge. But then Josh was the outstanding performer in our training camp, and he was the outstanding performer in some really challenging conditions. I know that he lost to another fantastic golfer in David Howard in the quarter-finals of the South, but that made my mind up. Josh was on my team.”
Robertson, a former Italian Open champion as a European Tour pro and a Walker Cup player alongside Padraig Harrington and Raymond Burns in 1993, delivered as much as his players at the weekend.
The 17-9 defeat to the US at Cypress Point 12 months earlier had stung the Scot as his side were crushed in the Sunday singles and the captain had used his training camps to sharpen GB&I’s killer instincts in individual matches, turning practice rounds into mini three- and six-hole singles contests.
That paid off during the matches this weekend, GB&I splitting the eight Saturday singles 4-4 and then turning the tables on historic American dominance by taking the Sunday session of 10 matches 7-3 to cement their places in Walker Cup legend. Robertson was entitled to his moment of personal glory too.
“There was one message I had to the team this week, to walk slowly to take it all in because it's going to pass in a flash. It did pass in a flash.
“But the last two years also passed in a flash. Those countless hours walking the top amateur events was getting to know these players in depth, getting to know them as individuals, but getting to know their games and their skill sets.
“And that's when we came together and we really kind of galvanized in our training and certain areas - we knew the examination of Lahinch. Cypress Point was harder, but this one we knew.
“The boys have delivered, and I am incredibly proud of each and every one of them.”
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