Lahinch to host the Palmer Cup

THE old course at Lahinch is set to play host to the Palmer Cup in 2020 according to the GUI.

The event, co-founded in 1997 by the late Arnold Palmer and the Golf Coaches Association of America, sees the best world’s best collegiate golfers face each other in a Ryder Cup style match where the USA take on Europe but on an annual basis.

Like the Ryder Cup, the Palmer Cup was originally between teams from the USA and Great Britain & Ireland but this changed to the USA versus Europe after the 2002 event.

It has been a pretty tight contest between the teams since the first event at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill course in Florida which the Americans won by a 19-7 margin and they’ve won on nine more occasions since then but Great Britain & Ireland managed a win at Royal Liverpool in 2002 and Europe have won on seven occasions also with the second match in the series at St Andrews in 1998 ending in a tie.

Doonbeg became the first Irish venue to host the Palmer Cup in 2002 where the Americans were successful but at Ballybunion’s famous old course in 2004, Europe who had Francesco Molinari, Alexander Noren and Gonalo Fernandez Costano beat the Americans who had Ryan Moore in their line-up.

Famous names who played in the Palmer Cup down through the years is like a “who’s who” of professional golf with the likes of Luke Donald, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Matt Kucher, JB Holmes, Hunter Mahan, Brant Snedeker, Tomas Pieters, JJ Henry, Ben Curtis, Webb Simpson, Bryson De Chambeau, Bill Haas, Billy Horschell, Charles Howell lll and Ritchie Ramsay.

Irish players who have competed include Graeme MacDowell, Jonathan Caldwell, Ritchie Coughlan, Paul Dunne, Johnny Foster, Stuart Grehan, Gary Hurley, Justin Kehoe, Peter Lawrie, Gareth Maybin, Keith Nolan, Neil Steven, Gareth Shaw and Kevin Phelan.