Wilson not so worried about Walker Cup rust
THERE’S a general feeling among those who follow amateur golf that the GB&I players who pitch up at Seminole in May for the Walker Cup against the USA will be as rusty as the wheel arch of an old Austin Allegro.
But what do we know? “Despite the perceived lack of preparation, I’m quite optimistic,” said the GB&I captain Stuart Wilson of this very different and very disrupted build-up to the biennial transatlantic tussle.
In a normal world, before the coronavirus flung a huge spanner in all manner of works, Wilson would have been popping to events here, there and everywhere and exchanging opinions with his selectors about a player doing this, another player doing that and a few more players doing a bit of the other.
With the pandemic effectively wiping out most of the amateur scene on this side of the pond last year, however, there hasn’t been much for Wilson and his wingmen to mull over. “I’ve just about forgotten who my selectors are,” he added with a wry chuckle. “We had a meeting about this time last year at Porthcawl but things were just about to kick off in the pandemic and there’s not been much chat since as there has been so little tournament golf.”
Even the captain himself has had the nice little perks of the job snatched from his grasp. “I got asked to play in the Coleman Invitational at Seminole and that was going to be part of the Walker Cup reconnaissance mission,” added the 43-year-old from Forfar. “I’d not played a serious event for years but I was really up for that. I’d dusted down the clubs again. I was gutted it had to be called off.”
The USA Walker Cup team was unveiled earlier this week and, with all 10 players ranked inside the top-23 of the world, it looks a fairly formidable side. Throw in the weight of history – GB&I have only won twice on US soil and the last success away from home was 20 years ago – and the task is as mighty as the Covid-19 vaccination process. Wilson is remaining positive and purposeful, though.
“It’s not like we are just throwing 10 guys together who we don’t know,” said Wilson, who will announce a side at the end of this month which hopefully includes Nairn youngster Sandy Scott “I had a lot to do with them at a boys level. There are plenty of familiar faces and a bit of continuity. The players at
and Wembley for the group games.
Scotland have shown that they can get big results in front of empty stands at least. It wasn’t a full-house against the Serbs when we won there in November, and they went there to an empty stadium and got a magnificent result against the odds.
It was great to see them empowered with that kind of confidence. That being said, for me, you need the crowds for inspiration.
A lot of teams have really suffered without them. Even Liverpool. Think back to when they overturned that Champions League tie against Barcelona where the Anfield crowd just roared them on to victory. They scored one goal and it all rolled on from there, and the crowd were absolutely inspirational.
Countries like Scotland do rely more on the inspiration of the big crowds, but I think the guys have also proved that they can play if there aren’t going to be any fans there.
Maybe playing in the other stadiums away from Hampden might bring the best out in them, as it did away in Serbia.
That was one of our best performances. Right away, they pressed the Serbs from kick-off and they were right up on them.
They were so aggressive in terms of closing the Serbs down, so they will have every right to go out on the field and have confidence, but we know that they are up against some classy teams.
England look like they’re in a different stratosphere, but Stevie will come up with a plan to make sure they aren’t allowed to play to the best of their abilities and stop their key players if he can. If our guys can win those individual battles in each game then there’s always a chance of a positive result.
Scotland had to wait a long time to return to a major finals and then saw it delayed by another year on top of that. It will be worth it in the end, though, and I’m counting down the days until the action gets underway.