Lauren Walsh didn’t have to look too far for some inspiration as she pondered her post-high school golf path. Leona Maguire enjoyed a highly decorated career at Duke University and Olivia Mehaffey was coming off similar success at Arizona State.
“Seeing those players excel,” said Walsh, a native of Kildare in the Republic of Ireland, “I decided a similar path myself.”
Walsh ultimately decided to follow those two standouts onto the biggest stage in women’s amateur golf. Maguire, from the Republic of Ireland, and Mehaffey, of Northern Ireland, were key figures on what may be the strongest Great Britain & Ireland Curtis Cup Team in the history of the biennial competition. Maguire, a two-time Annika Award winner as the top collegiate golfer in the U.S., Mehaffey and UCLA All-American Bronte Law, led GB&I to an impressive 11½-8½ victory at Dun Laoghaire Golf Club outside of Dublin.
That Maguire and Mehaffey fine-tuned their games in the American collegiate system wasn’t lost on Walsh, who is now a junior at Division I powerhouse Wake Forest.
It’s a path many others from Europe – and especially Great Britain and Ireland – have taken as a means to amateur and, in some cases, professional stardom.
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For the first time in Curtis Cup history, nearly the entire 2022 GB&I Team that seeks to regain the Cup at Merion Golf Club June 10-12 are honing their skills in the American college system – seven of the eight players. Besides Walsh, they include Hannah Darling (South Carolina), Charlotte Heath and Amelia Williamson (Florida State), Annabell Fuller (Florida), Caley McGinty (Ohio State) and Emily Price (Kent State).
The victorious 2016 team featured six players who attended college in the U.S. Law became the first GB&I player to post a 5-0 mark, while Charlotte Thomas was a couple of weeks removed from helping the University of Washington to a NCAA title. Alice Hewson (Clemson) and Meghan McLaren (Florida International) were the other two with U.S. college experience.
“If you want to turn professional and do some things in golf,” said Darling, “I really feel coming over here is the best thing to do.”
In Ireland and the United Kingdom, there are no intercollegiate athletics. Many colleges/universities have competitive golf societies, but generally players represent their home clubs, regions or countries in team events.
Coming to the U.S. offers not only great educational opportunities, but some of the best competition in the amateur game. Golfers also need to adapt to a variety of playing conditions. Darling, for instance, had to adjust to competing in events on bermudagrass, Poa annua and bentgrass, turf not often found in her native Scotland.
“It obviously pushes you to be better,” said Darling, who just completed her freshman year. “Back in the UK, you can almost get away with smaller mistakes … and it won’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Here, you’ve got to be a lot tighter with what you are doing. The courses [in the U.S.] are set up to punish shots that aren’t quite there.”
Experience is one thing. Confidence is another.
This GB&I side seems to have both on the eve of the three-day competition. Fuller and Duncan tuned up for the Match by playing in the U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles, where they both missed the cut. Duncan was the low amateur in last summer’s AIG Women’s British Open, finishing tied for 10th, while Fuller made the cut as a last-minute alternate.
Six of the eight were also on the team last August that led after Day 1 in Wales before the USA rallied for a five-point victory. They have also competed against most of the Americans in college.
“We’ve seen them, and they have seen us,” said Walsh. “There are no secrets out there.”
Walsh is in a unique spot for the second consecutive Match. Two current or former Wake Forest teammates are on the USA Team: Rachel Kuehn and Emilia Migliaccio. It has made for some fun back-and-forth ribbing in the lead-up to Merion.
Rivalries aside, this GB&I Team has become even closer since the loss in Wales. Williamson and Heath both play at Florida State, while McGinty and Price were briefly teammates at Kent State before the former transferred to Oklahoma State last fall. She just signed with Ohio State after entering the NCAA transfer portal earlier this year.
All of which has led to a confidence that GB&I might be able to win on American soil for just the second time since the Match began in 1932.
“For us, the [final] score didn’t tell the full story [in Wales],” said Darling of the 2021 defeat at Conwy Golf Club. “A lot of the games came down to 18 … that could have turned our way but didn’t. We definitely have a chip on our shoulder. There is some unfinished business.”
David Shefter is a senior staff writer for the USGA. Email him at dshefter@usga.org.