GB&I have assembled a strong team for the Curtis Cup but they will have to bring their ‘A’ games if they are to defeat an extremely talented American side.
Great Britain & Ireland have assembled a strong team for the Curtis Cup, which gets underway this Friday, but they will have to bring their ‘A’ games if they are to defeat an extremely talented American side.
With the USA having won eight out of the last nine matches, GB&I will be looking to turn the tables and relive the brilliance which saw them lift the Cup at Nairn Golf Club four years ago. In order to do so they will have to defeat an American team whose players are all ranked within the world’s top 30 and which includes the world number one amateur Hannah O’Sullivan.
The match which tees off this Friday at Dun Laoghaire Golf Club in Enniskerry, Ireland, and looks set to see a big turn out from the home crowd, consists of six foursomes (alternate-shot) matches, six four-ball matches and eight singles matches over three days of competition.
Amongst the most eagerly awaited contests would be a potential match up between Ireland’s Leona Maguire and Hannah O’Sullivan who recently leapfrogged the 21-year-old from County Cavan to the top of the world rankings. The 2015 US Amateur Champion, O’Sullivan has already amassed a professional victory at last year’s Symetra Tour’s Gateway Classic, where she became the tour’s first amateur winner in nearly two decades, and was also crowned the 2015 Rolex Girls Junior Champion.
With a host of victories to her name O’Sullivan will surely be one to watch out for this weekend but she is far from the only American player who can pack a punch.
The team also boasts three other players in the world top ten, Sierra Brooks (No. 5), Mariel Galdiano (No. 6) and Bailey Tardy (No. 9). With the GB&I side also featuring the world number two and eight in the form of Leona Maguire and Olivia Mehaffey, this could well be the strongest crop of players ever assembled for the transatlantic match.
They may have travelled with a far younger team than that representing the home side, only one of USA’s eight players is out of her teens, but they come boasting a host of trophies and accolades.
Mariel Galdiano is the 2015 Canadian Women’s Amateur Championship, Mika Liu won last year’s inaugural U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship, whilst Sierra Brooks earned victories last year in the South Atlantic Women’s Amateur (the Sally) and Women’s Southern Amateur.
With the remaining team players also holding impressive resumes, it is without question that GB&I will have to play their best if they are to regain the Cup. Nonetheless with an exceptionally talented of their own, it’s hard to imagine that this match can be anything but a thriller.
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