Open star Dunne to lead GB&I Walker Cup team

The Irish players are Paul Dunne, Jack Hume, Gary Hurley, Gavin Moynihan, Cormac Sharvin.

A snapshot of how Irish players have performed this season: in the recent European Amateur championship, Hurley finished runner-up and Moynihan, the only survivor from the B&I team from the 2013 match, finished third, while Moynihan won the Irish Amateur Open for a second time in three years earlier this season.

IT may look like little to shout about in comparison to Ireland’s record five-strong representation but, two years after one of the darkest days in Scottish golfing history, the inclusion of both Craigielaw’s Grant Forrest and Jack McDonald from Kilmarnock (Barassie) in the Great Britain & Ireland team for the upcoming Walker Cup is a welcome first step to some pride being restored in that event.

Devon County Golf Union secretary John Hirst said: “Jimmy making the 2015 Walker Cup team is fantastic news for him, his club and Devon golf”.

“The Walker Cup offers these players a tremendous opportunity to display their abilities and gain invaluable experience of playing in global team competition”. All five are expected to move on to the professional ranks after the Walker Cup.

But in giving Irish golf half the places in the 10-man team, non-playing captain Nigel Edwards and his selectors have also clearly impressed by the bond this band of Irish brothers has forged amongst themselves and the rest of the GB&I squad over the past few seasons. “We believe we have selected the best players for the team and are very much looking forward to the match”, said the Welshman. No Welsh player made the team.

Niebrugge, who pipped Ireland’s Paul Dunne to finish as the leading amateur at St Andrews last month, Scott Harvey, Denny McCarthy, Mike McCoy and teenager Robby Shelton will all represent their country at Royal Lytham and St Annes on September 12 and 13.

Miller, 65 is a two-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, winning in 1996 and 1998, and a member of the 1999 USA Walker Cup Team.

Open Championship Silver Medal victor Jordan Niebrugge is one of five players that have been added to the United States team for the match. He reached the quarter final stage of last week’s U.S. Amateur Championship at Olympia Fields.

Has been hugely consistent all season.

Yes, Dunne’s brilliant performances in the NCAAs, The Open and the US Amateur were important and so too was the Brabazon Trophy win by Sharvin, Moynihan’s second Irish Amateur Open win, Hurley’s European Amateur runner-up spot or Hume’s rock-like consistency in the past two years and his role in Ireland’s second successive Home Internationals.

Forrest, beaten finalist in this year’s Amateur Championship at Carnoustie, and McDonald, who reached the last four in Angus, are certainly in Nigel Edwards’ team on merit. He was on the Ireland team that won the Home Internationals earlier this month.

As for the Americans, they are led by recently crowned and somewhat eccentric US Amateur champion Bryson DeChambeau. A runner-up in the Irish Amateur Strokeplay and the Lytham Trophy this year, Sharvin finally got a deserved “W” when lifting the Brabazon Trophy.