Beth Coulter’s experience will be key if Great Britain and Ireland are to change a forty year record of American nightmares as they seek to scale their Everest and topple the USA in this weekend’s Curtis Cup at Bel Air Country Club.
GB&I have been notoriously poor travellers in the biennial contest and have only tasted success on US soil once, back in 1986. Diane Bailey masterminded a memorable 13-5 success at Prairie Dunes in Kansas with Ireland’s own Mary McKenna playing a key role in that away success.
Coulter is one of two players on this year’s GB&I team who was part of the super Sunningdale team who beat the USA two years ago for the first time since 2016 and her experience will be key coupled with the undoubted motivation to cap off a brilliant amateur career with even more glory and a win that would be remembered for decades to come.
In Catriona Matthew, GB&I are armed with a captain who knows everything about winning on away soil. The 54-year-old Scot famously led Europe to back to back Solheim Cup successes and will be gunning to replicate that formula in the Curtis Cup ranks.
Coulter has had an impressive amateur career to date and team success has been a huge part of that. Last year, she helped Great Britain and Ireland to their first Vagliano Trophy success since 2005 as well as being a regular fixture for Ireland in the European and World Amateur Team Championships.
The 22-year-old, who graduated from Arizona State University last month, has plenty of individual silverware as well including three Irish Girls Close Championships and the Irish Women’s Close Championship.
She made two appearances at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and while a Curtis Cup victory would be the icing on the cake of her amateur career, it is mooted and hoped that she will stick around for the European Women’s Team Championships in Slieve Russell in July before taking the leap into the pro ranks.
As for this weekend’s Curtis Cup, Coulter has a mixed matchplay record but proved a formidable foursomes and four ball player in Sunningdale two years ago earning one and a half points from three matches. Patience Rhodes is the second player who was part of the winning side and they were paired together for a foursomes match in 2024.
Being part of an away Curtis Cup winning side would cement Coulter as one of Ireland’s greatest ever amateur golfers. It would put her in the same breath as the likes of Leona and Lisa Maguire, Mary McKenna and Lauren Walsh etc.
Heading into the pro ranks, she looks to be the last of a golden crop as she follows former amateur teammates Sara Byrne, Annabel Wilson, Áine Donegan, Anna Foster and Walsh.
“I know I have a good few people to lean on who have just turned pro,” she told BBC NI recently.
“A lot of us on the LET [Ladies European Tour] and LPGA [Ladies Professional Golf Association] just over Christmas met up in Dublin and were talking about the last 10 years how we have grown up together and now four or five of those girls are in the LET and LPGA.
“Obviously, it is a bit nerve wracking, there is no next step. Now it is the big bad world, but I am very lucky to do something I love as my job, so it is very exciting.”
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