John Murphy and Mark Power came from behind to win the first point for GB&I this afternoon in the opening session of the Walker Cup. Playing at a windy Seminole Golf Club on the Atlantic coast in Florida, the pair only took the lead on the 17th, and a measured two putt on the final green saw the pair claim the point in the morning foursomes. The two Irish players were paired together, while it was expected both teams were hit by illness earlier in the week and it was unclear who would be fit to play today.
Needless to day Murphy was still on a high when it came to his post round interview with the Golf Channel, and he explained how they dealt with the pressure of being three down on two occasions. “I said to Mark both times we’re playing great, we’ve got to stick to what we’re doing. We got a couple of bad breaks early on but lets not try and force anything, this is a golf course for mistakes and we’ll let them make the mistakes. We stuck to our gameplan very well and stayed patient.”
Power too was delighted with the result and credited Murphy with some solid advice early in the round, “The old head here calmed me down today, he said just hit fairways and hit greens and we’ll wear these guys down.” Playing a Walker Cup match with a fellow Irishman was a real treat for both Murphy & Power and the Kilkenny man did a great job of describing it.
“It’s amazing. We were talking about it this week, we played Home Internationals together, played together when we were 15 and 16. On the first tee we said we were just going to just going to enjoy today and embrace it.”
It was a day of comebacks for GB&I. At one stage they were 4-0 down on the course but when the last match finished it was 2-2 on the scoreboard.
Both Irish golfers are back in action this evening in the opening singles. Power is out second against Davis Thompson while Murphy has the anchor spot on the team and will face world No 18 Cole Hammer. They tee off at 8.47pm (Irish time) with coverage continuing on Sky Sports and the Golf Channel.
Afternoon Singles
2:30 p.m. – Alex Fitzpatrick, GB&I vs. Pierceson Coody, USA
2:41 p.m. – Mark Power, GB&I vs. Davis Thompson, USA
2:52 p.m. – Ben Schmidt, GB&I vs. Ricky Castillo, USA
3:03 p.m. – Ben Jones, GB&I vs. Tyler Strafaci, USA
3:14 p.m. – Joe Long, GB&I vs. Quade Cummins, USA
3:25 p.m. – Angus Flanagan, GB&I vs. Austin Eckroat, USA
3:36 p.m. – Barclay Brown, GB&I vs. John Pak, USA
3:47 p.m. – John Murphy, GB&I vs. Cole Hammer, USA
It was another solid performance from Mallow’s James Sugrue yesterday as he carded a one under par 71 at the third round of the South African Strokeplay Championship. After earlier rounds of -5 and -3, yesterday’s one under was more modest, but he maintained his position on the leaderboard. Two bogies and three birdies meant that Sugrue finished on -1 and an aggregate of -9 for his 54 holes.
Cork Golf News 