Niall Kearney revisits his PGA Cup winning moment

Great Britain and Ireland victories in the PGA Cup have been few and far between, winning just seven in thirty-one attempts. At the K Club tomorrow they begin their quest to halt the four in a row bid of Team USA and claim back the cup at the K Club.

GB&I haven’t won the cup since 2017 with their only away triumph coming back in 2015 when Niall Kearney sunk the winning putt in his singles match to spark jubilant scenes on the 18th green at CordeValle California.

There is a sense that victory for GB&I always means more, perhaps because they have been rare feats in the contest but for Kearney, who represents the Eddie Doyle Golf Academy these days on the PGA in Ireland region, it remains one of his favourite golfing memories eleven years on.

“It’s a great memory. It was a great week over in California, we got to spend a bit of time in San Francisco and it was just a great trip. It was a very luxurious place and the course was fantastic. The standard of golf was very good from both sides,” explained the three-time Irish PGA champion.

Kearney won in dramatic circumstances. GB&I hadn’t won the PGA Cup since 2005, at the K Club which could prove a good omen this weekend, and with all eyes on his match he looked in position to deliver the winning point. After laying up on the par-5 18th, he overshot the green by quite a distance and was left with a treacherous up and down to clinch the trophy. After flopping to eight-feet, the Dubliner defied his nerves to seal the deal and help GB&I conquer America for the first time.

“Last hole is a par-5, decent tee shot, laid it up just in the semi rough to just over 100 yards but the lie wasn’t great so I was hitting over a big lake short of the green. I was conscious of hitting it short and I hit a gap wedge and it flew out straight over the back of the green into a terrible spot,” said Kearney who played in the 2009 Walker Cup and played a season on the DP World Tour.

“I was lucky in the end to give myself a putt to win the thing. I played a great do or die flop shot to six or seven feet and rolled it in. It was all on that. If I had missed it would have been a disaster.

“I was very relieved and there was great celebrations and there are great memories. I was very nervous. I knew what was on the line, my opponent was already in the hole it wasn’t like if I missed he had a putt. It was do or die and I was fortunate to putt a decent stroke on it and it went in the middle.”

Heading into the contest starting tomorrow, GB&I look rank outsiders to lift just their eighth PGA Cup despite boasting former European Tour winner and PGA in Ireland captain Simon Thornton and two-year European Tour player Matthew Ford it is a team of traditional PGA Professionals.

On the other side is a US team who boast several players with PGA Cup experience, PGA Tour experience and starts in the US PGA Championship and US Open.

Kearney believes a big part of the GB&I struggles in the PGA Cup is down to the American’s access to more competitive golf and qualifying events rather than the pro-am structure this side of the Atlantic.

“Most of the American team have access to the PGA Championship or to qualify for it anyway so lots of guys on their team had major golf experience. A good few of the GB&I guys would be club pros, they might have played tour golf over the years but the Americans were much more experienced.

“As PGA pros in GB&I we play a lot of pro-am golf which is very enjoyable but it’s not massively competitive. The lads in the USA have access to more qualifiers where they can get into mini tour events and the PGA Championship. We have the Open Series now which gives more access to competitive golf but only one of them is in Ireland so it can be difficult to get over to the UK so it’s not that easy to take part in all of them either because guys are busy and have businesses to run.”

You can come along and support GB&I and the schedule for the event is below.  If you can’t make it in person you can follow along remotely on the PGA social media channels or on THIS LINK for scoring.

To find out more about the PGA Cup, click here.