To categorise the USA as a tough place to go for Great Britain and Ireland in the Curtis Cup would be a massive understatement. Today, GB&I bid to turn a forty-year American nightmare into a California dream at Bel Air Country Club.
Mary McKenna knows what it’s like to end a Curtis Cup famine. She was part of the 1986 GB&I side who triumphed 13-5 over the USA in Prairie Dunes Country Club, Kansas, for the visitors first ever away success. Little did she think it would remain their only away win in the contest.
Even any victory for GB&I seemed unlikely at the time as the USA were on a 13-cup win streak spanning 30 years but McKenna and fellow Irish legends Lillian Behan and Claire Hourihane shone in the searing heat.
“It was hot. You had to put your geansaí on going into the clubhouse and take it off going out because it was like walking into an oven. We wouldn’t have been used to that,” reflects McKenna who collected 1.5 points from her two foursomes matches.
“It was one of those things where everything went right for us, we just got the points. Going out in the last round we only needed one match from six singles.
“In those days it was six singles and three foursomes. There were no fourballs. I think foursomes is the best game, it’s a real tester. You have to be with your partner all the way. It was over two days whether that made a difference to not having to cope with the heat into a third day and playing eight more singles maybe that strengthened us.
“Thinking back on it, it all clicked for us. It was very much about the team spirit, you could see the team spirit among the girls, the same thing in Sunningdale two years ago you could see it for GB&I and the support behind them.
“Prairie Dunes where we won, it had the look of a links course. I know it sounds mad for the middle of Kansas, it had the dunes feeling. Whether that made a difference I don’t know but it just had that feeling. It was one of those weeks where things went right.”
GB&I have tasted amateur success on US soil just three times with two Walker Cup wins and the 1986 Curtis Cup triumph.
This weekend GB&I are undoubtedly up against it, but in Catriona Matthew they have a back to back Solheim Cup winning captain, including Ohio in 2021, and the Scot skippered the Curtis Cup side in Sunningdale two years ago. In 1986 they had another mastermind in their ranks in captain Diane Bailey.
McKenna doesn’t delve into any of the tactical ploys Bailey used, or any motivational team talks in the locker room. Rather the captain was ahead of her time when it came to nutrition as her panel looked to beat the Kansas heat. Isotonics, protein shakes and electrolytes wouldn’t have been common knowledge in the 1980s and certainly weren’t as prominent in golf as they are now, but they worked a treat that week.
“Di Bailey had done a lot of research on rehydration and this was all pre-nutrition,” continues McKenna. “There was a thing called isostar which would be the equivalent to Gatorade today, that type of thing. It was a powder and you just put it into your water, it was like drinking orange squash, was lovely when it was cold but when it got warm it wasn’t great.
“She had another thing called perform which was a protein drink. This was all pre-nutritionalists, we were ahead of the game and we all had these grey bottles with isostar written on them and you had to take your perform. She weighed us when we came in to see how much liquid we were losing and we had to drink to make it up. She was way ahead of herself.
“I don’t know whether that did any good but it certainly gave us the mental edge. It didn’t do us any harm anyway because we were putting all those electrolytes back into our bodies, that was probably the biggest thing.”
McKenna has been a magnificent servant and inspiration to Irish women’s golf since beginning her career in 1968. She was a winner of twelve domestic championships and played on a record nine consecutive Curtis Cup teams, winning a record ten matches and twelve points before captaining the side twice in 2008 and 2010. When it comes to the competition, there is nothing she doesn’t know!
As for today’s contest, where Kirkistown Castle’s Beth Coulter is the lone Irish representative, Great Britain and Ireland face a David vs Goliath task.
GB&I are heavily outranked by the USA with an average world ranking of 117 to 14. The visitors have just two players inside the top-50 compared to the hosts who boast world number one Kiara Romero, world number three Farah O’Keeffe and world number eight Asterisk Talley who all made the cut in last week’s US Women’s Open.
“It will be more difficult for them this year because they won’t have the support, I don’t know anyone who has gone out support wise. Normally I would go but it’s just too far,” says McKenna who knows more than most that anything is possible in matchplay.
“It’s a new team this year. Beth and Patience Rhodes were on it last year. Matchplay is different. It’s a different ball game, you lose a hole so what it’s not over, your card isn’t ruined.”
Playing in the US won’t be alien to the GB&I team with how many players move across the Atlantic on collegiate scholarships but it will be about them summoning the quality to overhaul the immense depth the USA have in their ranks.
“America could put out twenty teams probably! It’s a different era now because so many of the GB&I girls go to college in the US and then they come out as little professionals. If you do four years in college you nearly qualify for the pro ranks, so they have the experience and they play in very hard competitions.
“So many of these girls have been in the States, been in the States, have played against the Americans, they know them. Our era getting to go to the States was just unreal. We used to get a great trip out of it because they played the US Amateur after the Curtis Cup. It was brilliant, but these girls have the experience of playing.”
World number 106 Beth Coulter was not selected for the opening four ball session.
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