7th August 2024
The 34th St. Andrews Trophy match between Great Britain & Ireland (GB&I) and Continent of Europe was played at Royal Porthcawl G.C. on 25th-26th July 2024.
This biennial men’s match has been traditionally played in alternate years to GB&I’s Walker Cup match against USA.
Continent of Europe beat GB&I by 16.0-9.0. To put this in context it was only Europe’s sixth win, just their second away one and their biggest ever surpassing their 15.5-9.5 triumph in Finland in 2018.
Unusually when compared with recent years Europe were able to field a strong team and their comfortable victory does not bode well for GB&I heading into next year’s Walker Cup match.
New GB&I captain Dean ROBERTSON said “The result obviously didn’t go our way but I couldn’t have asked any more from my team in terms of preparation. On the week we were just beaten by a team that played better.”
Continent of Europe (Photo: Cameron Smith / R&A / R&A via Getty Images)
The R&A Selection Committee, including Scottish Captain Robertson announced their nine man team for the match on 8th July 2024.
Each GB&I player’s nationality, WAGR as at 17th July 2024 and Selection Route is shown below: –
James ASHFIELD (23) – Wales, #27, WAGR Top 5
Jack BIGHAM (20) – England #37, WAGR Top 5
Seb CAVE (20) – England, #342, Captain’s Pick
Dominic CLEMONS (22) – England, #157, Captain’s Pick
Charlie FORSTER (21) – England, #262, Captain’s Pick
Connor GRAHAM (17) – Scotland, #149, Captain’s Pick
Gregor GRAHAM (20) – Scotland, #108, Captain’s Pick
Max KENNEDY (22) – Ireland, #30, WAGR Top 5
Caolan RAFFERTY (31) – Ireland, #53, WAGR Top 5
First Reserve
Will HOPKINS (24) – England, #63, Captain’s Pick
The R&A had stated in advance that the top 5 players in the World Amateur Golf Ranking as at 3rd July 2024 would be guaranteed selection.
Calum SCOTT from Scotland, #13, GB&I’s leading player and who would have been an Automatic WAGR Top 5 selection, made himself unavailable. One has to assume that Calum will be turning pro once he has completed his senior year at Texas Tech and will also not be available for selection at Cypress Point in September 2025.
The WAGR policy caught Captain Robertson out when the final list was released and Caolan RAFFERTY, who had not played in either the recent Amateur or European Amateur Championships due to work commitments, surprisingly jumped above Will HOPKINS to take the 5th slot. Having said that the Scotsman still had four selections available to him and still chose not to take Hopkins with him.
It will be interesting to see how transparent The R&A are, particularly with regards to WAGR, with their 2025 team selection policies.
Looking at the individual performance analysis below Dominic CLEMONS and Connor GRAHAM, and to a lesser degree James ASHFIELD and Jack BIGHAM, were the only GB&I players to leave Wales with their reputations at this level intact.
Given the forthcoming changes to the amateur golf calendar it is worth noting that this match will for the first time be played again before the next Walker Cup contest. Continent of Europe will defend the trophy at Puerta De Hierro in Madrid, Spain on 24th-25th July 2025, just five weeks before the Walker Cup starts in California.
ME.
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