After the heroics of Saturday evening the Great Britain and Ireland balloon has burst. Even the usually heaving golfing town of Lahinch feels sombre after USA completed their first foursomes whitewash since 2007 which was coincidentally the last time the Walker Cup was held on Irish soil.
They repeated the feat with a sensational performance on Sunday morning, winning all four matches in wet and windy weather that was supposed to suit the hosts. USA tore up the script and now lead 9.5 to 6.5 heading into the ten afternoon singles.
The pairings were the same as the day one foursomes where GB&I edged the session by a point but it was the Americans who came out of the traps in rampant, relentless fashion. They were helped by a shocking GB&I performance who made fifteen bogeys, losing 80% of those holes, to just the five from their opponents.
Stuart Grehan and Eliot Baker were beaten 3&2 by Preston Stout and Ethan Fang in a match they never led. Indeed, GB&I were never in front in any of the four matches. This was complete dominance from the USA.
Luke Poulter and Sam Easterbrook went down 4&3 to Jay Leng Jr and Kihei Akina while the lefties Miles Russell and Tyler Watts eased to a 3&2 win over Tyler Weaver and Connor Graham. There was no reprieve in the anchor match either as Niall Sheils Donegan and Josh Hill lost 4&3 to Ryder Cowan and William Jennings.
At Royal County Down on Sunday USA won 4-0 in the foursomes. A heroic fightback of 5.5 to 2.5 from GB&I in the singles came up shy. The hosts will need to arguably produce the greatest comeback of all time against a team that boasts the world number one in Stout and nine of the top-12 ranked players in the world.
GB&I captain Dean Robertson said that the opening day of the Walker Cup was the finest day of golf he has ever been involved in.
Sunday morning will surely be up there with his worst and the fear is that there is more to come in the singles with the increase from eight to ten matches fancied to suit the depth in the American panel.
“Well, first of all, the U.S. team played exceptional golf this morning. Absolutely world class and hats off to them,” said the Scot.
“Our players played well. The focus this afternoon is that, you know, there is going to — chances are going present themselves and we need to be ready to take them. We need to get some momentum out early. We need to get the crowd behind us.
“And then if we do that, the pressure is going to build and then there is a good — still got a chance. So we are going to be positive in the afternoon. That’s it. That’s it.”
Team GB&I need seven points from the ten singles matches to win their first Walker Cup since 2015.
Grehan and Stout will go at it again for a fourth successive match in the top game of the Sunday singles.
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