| To be played at St Andrews |
 - Nick Gabrelcik, 21, of Trinity, Fla.; Austin Greaser, 21, of Vandalia, Ohio; Stewart Hagestad, 32, of Newport Beach, Calif.; Ben James, 19, of Milford, Conn.; Dylan Menante, 22, of Carlsbad, Calif.; and Preston Summerhays, 19, of Scottsdale, Ariz., were named to the 2023 USA Walker Cup Team by the USGA’s International Team Selection (ITS) working group on Sunday night to complete the 10-player team. The six players join Nick Dunlap, David Ford, Gordon Sargent and Caleb Surratt, all of whom were previously selected to the team. Michael Thorbjornsen, who earned a place on the team as one of the top three Americans in the World Amateur Golf Ranking®/WAGR® as of June 21, withdrew earlier this month due to a back injury. The USA Team will compete against Great Britain and Ireland in the 49th Walker Cup Match on Sept. 2-3 at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. “These six players are outstanding additions to round out this year’s team,” said Mike McCoy, captain of the USA Team. “This group of players has earned the opportunity to be part of this team and I’m thrilled to see their hard work rewarded. I am beyond excited to have our full team set as we begin to prepare for the Old Course.” Nick Gabrelcik, 21, of Trinity, Fla., is coming off a run to the Round of 32 in this week’s U.S. Amateur Championship at Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver, Colo. Earlier this summer, he notched a victory at the Southern Amateur Championship at the Honors Course in Ooltewah, Tenn., shooting a final round 8-under 64 to overcome a six-stroke deficit. The rising senior at the University of North Florida advanced to the semifinals of the 2021 U.S. Amateur at Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club. In 2021, he earned the Phil Mickelson Award as the top freshman in college golf. He is a three-time USA Palmer Cup competitor and made the cut in the 2023 Valspar Championship on the PGA Tour, shooting a second-round 67. Austin Greaser, 21, of Vandalia, Ohio, is also coming off a run to the Round of 32 in this week’s U.S. Amateur Championship. Greaser earned a spot in the 2022 U.S. Open by finishing runner-up to James Piot in the 2021 U.S. Amateur at Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club. The fifth-year senior at the University of North Carolina lost in the 36-hole final, 2 and 1. He was one of only four amateurs to make the cut at The Country Club. Greaser won the 2022 Western Amateur Championship, defeating Mateo Fernandez de Oliveira in the finals. He was a quarterfinalist in the 2019 U.S. Junior Amateur at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, losing to eventual champion Preston Summerhays. In April 2022, he competed in the Masters Tournament, his first major championship start. Stewart Hagestad, 32, of Newport Beach, Calif., has been a member of three winning USA Walker Cup Teams (2017, 2019, 2021). Hagestad, who has competed in four U.S. Opens, reached the quarterfinals of both the 2022 and 2020 U.S. Amateurs. He has played in 26 USGA championships, including 13 U.S. Amateurs. He captured the 2021 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship at Sankaty Head Golf Club, defeating Mark Costanza, 2 and 1. He also defeated Scott Harvey in 37 holes in the 2016 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship final, producing the largest comeback victory since the 36-hole final was introduced in 2001. Hagestad was the low amateur in the 2017 Masters Tournament, becoming the first invited Mid-Amateur champion to make the 36-hole cut. Ben James, 19, of Milford, Conn., advanced to the quarterfinals of this week’s U.S. Amateur, falling in 19 holes to Parker Bell. James is coming off an accolade-filled freshman year at the University of Virginia, where he was named winner of the 2023 Phil Mickelson Outstanding Freshman Award, a First-Team Ping All-American, ACC Freshman of the Year and a finalist for both the Haskins and Jack Nicklaus Awards. He finished sixth at the NCAA Championships, set the UVA record with five first-place finishes and finished in the top six in 11 of 13 tournaments. James is only the second player in Virginia history to earn first-team All-America honors. He was also selected to the 2023 U.S. Palmer Cup Team. He received a sponsor exemption to play in the 2023 Travelers Championship in his home state of Connecticut. Dylan Menante, 22, of Carlsbad, Calif., became the first University of North Carolina player to finish in the top 10 in both an NCAA regional (T-6) and the NCAA Championship (T-4) in the same season. The fifth-year senior transferred to Chapel Hill from Pepperdine last year and has now played on teams that earned top-three finishes in the NCAA Championship in each of the last three seasons. He earned his second consecutive West Coast Conference Player of the Year honors during a junior year at Pepperdine that included four top-10 finishes. Menante helped the Waves capture the 2021 NCAA Championship, their first national title since 1997. He has competed in five U.S. Amateurs (2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023), losing in the Round of 64 to Walker Cup teammate Caleb Surratt earlier this week at Cherry Hills. He also reached the semifinals of the 2022 U.S. Amateur at The Ridgewood Country Club. His father, Dean, played at the University of Nevada and competed in the 1984 U.S. Amateur. Preston Summerhays, 21, of Scottsdale, Ariz., advanced to match play in this week’s U.S. Amateur, falling in the Round of 64 to 2023 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball champion Sampson Zheng, 1 up. Summerhays played in his second U.S. Open this year, after surviving a 3-for-2 playoff in final qualifying at the Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles. Summerhays won the 2019 U.S. Junior Amateur, which earned him an exemption into the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. Summerhays, who has played in five U.S. Amateurs, is the son of former PGA Tour player Boyd, the nephew of PGA Tour player Daniel and the great nephew of Bruce, who won three PGA Tour Champions events. Preston’s sister, Grace, qualified for this year’s U.S. Women's Open and his uncle, Joe, was in the field at the 2023 U.S. Senior Open. Preston partnered with Luke Potter to reach the quarterfinals of the 2021 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball. He also won the 2020 Sunnehanna Amateur, becoming the youngest champion in tournament history. In 2022, Summerhays was named Pac-12 Conference Freshman of the Year after recording eight top 10s during his first year at Arizona State University. Maxwell Moldovan, 21, of Uniontown, Ohio; and Neal Shipley, 23, of Pittsburgh, Pa., are the first and second alternates, respectively. The Walker Cup Match is a 10-man amateur team competition between the USA and Great Britain and Ireland. The Match is played over two days with 18 singles matches and eight foursomes (alternate-shot) matches. The Old Course has hosted eight previous Walker Cups, more than any other venue, most recently in 1975, when the USA defeated GB&I, 15½-8½, led by future U.S. Open champions Jerry Pate and Curtis Strange. Tickets to this year’s Walker Cup are available for purchase by clicking here. |
| History of the Walker Cup |
At the same time, British and American amateurs consid-ered each nation’s national amateur championship a great plum. Mean while, the USGA Executive Committee had been invited to Great Britain for a series of meetings with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews Rules Committee. The meeting was to look at the advisability of modifying vari-ous rules of the game. Among the participants was George Herbert Walker, USGA president in 1920. Upon the Executive Committee’s return to the United States of America, international team matches were discussed. The idea so appealed to Walker that he soon presented a plan and offered to donate a trophy. Walker had been a low hand-icap player and was a keen advocate of the game. When the press dubbed the trophy the Walker Cup, the name stuck. In 1921, the USGA invited all golfing nations to send teams to compete in the Match, but no country was able to accept that year. The Americans stuck to their mission, however, and William C. Fownes, the 1910 U.S. Amateur champion, who had twice assembled the amateur teams that played against Canada, rounded up a third team in the spring of 1921 and took it to England. At Hoylake, the American team defeated a British team, 9-3, in an informal match the day before the British Amateur. Early in 1922, The R&A announced that it would send a team to compete for the Walker Cup at the National Golf Links of America, Walker’s home club, in Southampton, N.Y. Originally, the competition was open to any country that might care to challenge. The USGA invited all countries to compete. Except for Great Britain, however, no other country was able to accept. Fownes was the American captain for the inaugural match and his team consisted of Charles Evans Jr., Robert Gardner, U.S. Amateur champion Jesse Guilford, Robert T. Jones Jr., Max Marston, Francis Ouimet, Jess Sweetser and Rudolph Knepper, who did not play. Robert Harris was captain of the British side, and his play-ers were Cyril Tolley, Roger Wethered, Colin Aylmer, C.V.L. Hooman, W.B. Torrance, John Caven and W. Willis Mackenzie. Ernest Holderness, the British Amateur champion, was unable to make the trip. Bernard Darwin, the golf writer of The Times of London, had accompanied the team and wound up playing in the Match. When Harris fell ill, Darwin was invited to compete in his place and serve as playing captain. He defeated Fownes, 3 and 1. The American Team, however, prevailed, winning the first Walker Cup Match, 8-4. Until recent years, the USA clearly dominated the series, but the number of American victories never clouded the true pur-pose of the Walker Cup Match. A much higher value has been placed upon the series as a medium of international friend-ship and understanding between The R&A and the USGA. The Match was played on an annual basis until 1924, when it was decided that the financial strain of annual encounters was too severe. It was also believed that interest might drop if the Matches were played too frequently. A decision was made to meet in alternate years. The series was interrupted by World War II after the 1938 Match at St. Andrews, Scotland. When the Match resumed, in 1947, St. Andrews was again selected as the site. Under normal peacetime conditions, the Match would have been played in the USA, but postwar economic conditions would have made the trip difficult for the British. Many Walker Cup alumni have gone to have tremendous pro-fessional success, including Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Corey Pavin, Davis Love III, Rickie Fowler, Webb Simpson and Jordan Spieth. |
The Walker Cup Match began in the wake of World War I with a view toward stimulating golf interest on both sides of the Atlantic. The match grew in part out of two international matches between the USA and Canada, in 1919 and 1920.