Five Things to Know: 50th Walker Cup Match

Team selection is in the books. All of the preparation has been completed. The pomp and circumstance of the dinners, cocktail parties, meeting with the 43rd President of the United States and raising of the flags are in the rearview mirror. It’s time for official golf shots to be struck at iconic Cypress Point Club at the 50th Walker Cup Match.

Two days of fierce competition featuring eight foursomes (alternate-shot) and 18 singles matches will determine the winner of the biennial competition between the USA and Great Britain and Ireland. The host Americans are seeking a fifth consecutive victory in an event it has dominated since its inception in 1922 at National Golf Links of America (39-9-1).

On paper, it looks like another American victory. The top six players in the World Amateur Golf Ranking®/WAGR® are all on the USA Team (Jackson Koivun, Ben James, Ethan Fang, Jase Summy, Preston Stout and Tommy Morrison), and 2025 NCAA champion Michael La Sasso checks in at No. 7.

The average WAGR ranking between the two sides is significant: 23.0 for the USA and 96.4 for GB&I. The Americans’ lowest-ranked player is Mason Howell (143), who captured last month’s U.S. Amateur at The Olympic Club. GB&I has three players ranked outside the top 100, including Gavin Tiernan (465), of the Republic of Ireland, the runner-up to Fang in this year’s Amateur Championship at Royal St. George’s, in England. And GB&I has only two competitors in the top 20, Florida State standout Tyler Weaver (10) and lefty Cameron Adam (17), a former standout at Northwestern University.

Koivun, the world No. 1, is going to face GB&I’s top-ranked player, Weaver, in the Saturday afternoon singles session.

But matches are not simulated on a computer. There’s a deep human element to head-to-head competition, and certainly anything can happen over the course of 18 holes.

Weaver, for instance, went 3-0 as a freshman for the Seminoles in the 2024 NCAA Championship, and was 3-0-1 in GB&I’s victory over Continental Europe at the St. Andrews Trophy.

“Well, in terms of legacy, we're under no illusions as to just how challenging it is to come up against such a strong United States team and arguably on paper the strongest ever assembled,” said GB&I captain Dean Robertson. “But we're looking forward to it.”

Here are five things to know as the Match gets underway with four foursomes matches:

Bounce Back

When GB&I captain Dean Robertson first came to Cypress Point a year ago to scout the 2025 Walker Cup venue, it played soft. Shots could be easily stopped on the challenging green complexes. But in the days leading up to this year’s Match, both sides have seen the course conditions change drastically. Firm and fast has made Cypress Point play more like classic links venues often seen by the visiting side.

It altered some of Robertson’s original strategy, and created the kind of critical thinking it takes to succeed on layouts in Great Britain and Ireland.

“Certainly, the greens firming up is the change,” said Robertson. “This golf course demands strategic intelligence, and it demands golfing manners. Going back to the defense of the golf course, the pin positions are going to be set up difficult, and the players are going to have to be respectful of that and have a game plan appropriate to that, and in order to unlock it, they're going to have to have a good strategy in place.”

Added GB&I’s Cameron Adam, a 2025 Northwestern University graduate who qualified for this year’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush: “There's a lot of feast or famine out there. As much as a load of the slopes [on the greens] can help you, they're the protection as well. They can bowl a ball into the pin, but if you get on the wrong side of it, you can't hit it within 10 feet. That is what makes the course gettable is the protection, and that's one of the beauties of the architecture out there. What's there to help you also hurts you.”

Pace of Play

With uniform fittings, travel, dinners, meeting with luminaries and practice rounds, it can be a long week leading up to the actual two-day competition. So both captains are trying to do their best to keep their charges fresh, limiting the actual amount of time spent at Cypress Point.

While both teams arrived last weekend, they eased their respective teams into a routine. GB&I only walked Cypress Point on Saturday and took Tuesday off to let players rest and enjoy some downtime that included video games.

The Americans, led by Captain Nathan Smith, also played only nine holes on Thursday and many did the same during Friday’s “official” practice round ahead of the flag-raising ceremony. Friday was the first day spectators were allowed on the property.

“When we came in last week, our first day we spent in San Francisco,” said Robertson. “The course walk [on Saturday] was quite significant because there was no golf clubs, it was just a putter, some golf balls and a wedge for around the greens, and we spent a lot of time going around the 18 holes and learning the greens so that when we got back here [Wednesday] morning we were able to understand more and learn more, and that's really what we've been doing. We've just been taking it little by little.

“We know areas of the game that … this golf course demands. You've got to be an exceptional iron player. The fairways are relatively generous, and you've got to have incredible touch and feel on and around the greens. If you can do that, you're going to make yourself hard to beat.”

Added Smith: “I think that anytime you get into Walker Cups or team events, it always seems like the nights get a little later, the mornings get earlier. One of the things we've tried to do is preorder food to try to get the guys back to their rooms as quickly as possible.

“We're going to play our hearts out. I think we feel good about the lineups we have and everything with the guys. I think the guys have bonded all week. Now it's about getting some rest, going out and executing.” 

California Dreamin’

It’s certainly not unusual for Californians to be represented on the USA side. The greats to have represented the Red, White and Blue from the Golden State include Tiger Woods, Bryson DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson, Gene Littler, Rickie Fowler, Collin Morikawa, Craig Stadler, Corey Pavin and now-five-time competitor Stewart Hagestad, a three-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion.

But this year, the opposition has just as many competitors with California ties as the home team. Niall Shiels Donegan, the breakout star of last month’s U.S. Amateur (semifinalist), was born in Scotland, but has lived in Mill Valley, just north of San Francisco, for the past 17 years. And Charlie Forster, of England, a semifinalist in this year’s U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, starred at Long Beach State University.

The Americans feature the aforementioned Hagestad, a native of Newport Beach and a University of Southern California graduate, and world No. 1 and Auburn University junior Jackson Koivun, who was born in San Jose but moved as a 17-year-old to Chapel Hill, N.C.

While Donegan, 20, might not have the same on-course support this week as he did at The Olympic Club when seemingly his entire hometown was on the grounds, he feels quite at home at Cypress Point. The University of North Carolina junior (he transferred this summer after two years at Northwestern University) grew up playing on poa annua greens and is used to the climate. As a 12-year-old he attended the Walker Cup at The Los Angeles Country Club with his well-known father, Lawrence, a former sportswriter for The Guardian newspaper.

“I think it's one of the great opportunities we've got … to be able to feed off the energy of the crowd,” said Donegan. “I'm fortunate to have grown up not too far from here, a few hours north, so I hope that [the fans] come out in force again and have some more fun.”

Koivun made a few visits to the Monterey Peninsula as a junior but only played at Poppy Hills, a Robert Trent Jones Jr. design operated by the Northern California Golf Association. His chance to play Cypress came as an Auburn freshman for a college event.

“It's good to get back on the West Coast, back in California,” said Koivun. “Pretty familiar with this weather, this type of grass. Just happy to be back.”

Hagestad, who has played on four victorious teams dating to the 2017 Match at The Los Angeles Country Club, one of his home courses, has a chance to improve upon his 5-1 singles record. He's 1-4 in foursomes.

“I think back on my [singles] record, and I think on paper, it is one I guess you could say I'm very happy with,” said the 34-year-old Hagestad, “but at the same time, I personally care way more about the team record at the end of the week. When I think back on all of my different experiences with the Walker Cup, I think back to the kind of feelings that came after [a win] with your team.”

Triumphant Team

While eight of the 10 members of the Great Britain & Ireland squad compete or have competed at American colleges, the bigger stat is that nine of the 10 have already experienced victory together as a unit this summer.

The St. Andrews Trophy, a biennial competition very similar to the Walker Cup, features nine amateurs from GB&I against nine from Continental Europe. This year’s event was held in July outside of Madrid, and GB&I rolled to an impressive 16.5-8.5 victory. Only Niall Shiels Donegan did not participate in the triumph.

GB&I went 6-0-2 in foursomes play and the team hopes to continue that good fortune in the two sessions this weekend. Robertson, not tempting good fate, kept those same foursomes pairings for Saturday’s opening session.

“Foursomes play is so important in any of these matches, and … we have been putting work into foursomes play and really focusing in on that,” said Captain Robertson, who also captained the St. Andrews Trophy team. “Off the back of Madrid, there's momentum there, but there's also continuity within the players, and that's something that we'll look to use to our advantage in the weekend.”

Short and Long

One of the unique characteristics of Cypress Point is the back-to-back par-3 holes at 15 and 16. While both are spectacular in terms of beauty – each hugs the rocky shores of the Pacific Ocean – they couldn’t be more different, which could make for some high drama as the matches reach their conclusion.

The 15th measures just 137 yards and likely will be a wedge for the competitors, but No. 16, one of the most photographed holes in golf, is a brute that measures as much as 233 yards and will require anything from a 4-iron to a 3-wood, and maybe a driver if the winds are howling.

And it’s a good bet that the matches will reach these two holes. Going back to the 2009 Match, 171 of a possible 208 matches (foursomes and singles) have gone at least 16 holes.

If spectators are looking for drama as well as beauty, this will be an ideal spot at Cypress Point to catch the action.

David Shefter is a senior staff writer at the USGA. Email him at dshefter@usga.org.