LET'S START THINKING HOW WE CAN BEAT THE USA AT DUN LAOGHAIRE
MAGUIRE TWINS AVAILABLE FOR 2016
CURTIS CUP MATCH AT IRISH VENUE
By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Colin@scottishgolfview.com
The best bit of post-Curtis Cup news I have received came from Breda Macquire, mother of the talented twins Leona and Lisa, pictured below.
She says that they will be available for selection for the 2016 match against the United States at Dun Laoghaire Golf Club, near Dublin.
Leona played in the cup-winning GB and I team at Nairn in June 2012 while Lisa has played in previous Curtis Cup matches.
They were not available for selection for the 2014 match because of school studies and exams. They will enrol at Duke University, which already has the best women's college golf team in America and I expect the Maguire girls' golf will benefit considerably from regular competition against quality opposition in the States.
It is impossible for me to pass judgment on the GB and I performance at St Louis Country Club, Missouri. I was not there so how can I either praise or criticise.
I am told that the GB and I players did not look confident over the first two days at the end of which the Americans were in almost uncatchable lead.
Do we need to enlist the services of a pyschologist in the build-up for the 20146 match? Or somebody like Sir Alex Ferguson who was one of the best team motivators football has ever seen. Something to think about.
The Irish factor - crowd fervour, etc - played a big part in Europe's Solheim Cup win when it was played at an Irish venue, and I think it will be an important plus factor at Dunlaoghaire two years from now.
Who know what young players will rise to Curtis Cup class by June 2016? Look how Annabel Dimmock improved in leaps and bounds from January this year to earn a place in Tegwen Matthews' team.
Georgia Hall is reported to be turning pro after defending the British open amateur title at Royal St George's GC, Kent in the last week of this month.
Stephanie Meadow, who is playing in next week's US Women's Open, will be a professional by then.
The LGU has done away with regular get-togethers of international squads. I suggest that they bring them back in the last few months before the 2016 Curtis Cup match, even if means the expense of bringing over the possible team members who are at college in America.
Aberdeen Asset Management's golf sponsorship bill must be astronomical but worth approaching their powers-that-be to come on board for the 2014 Curtis Cup build-up?
As skipper Matthews said in one of her Press Conferences at St Louise: "By the time the 2012 match was played at Nairn, we felt as if we knew every blade of grass there."
From this side of the Atlantic, the GB and I team did not play well either in the foursomes of the four-ball matches - and that adds up to 12 of the 20pt at stake over the three days.
What about this for out-of-the-box thinking by yours truly:
For the sole purpose of seeing who can and who can't play well together at Dun Laoghaire, let's have:
(a) An open better-ball pairs tournament at the Curtis Cup venue.
(b) An open foursomes tournament at the Curtis Cup venue.
Introduce them to the women's amateur golf calendar in the summer of 2015, when all the college girls should be home on vacation, and stage them again in April 2016 - six weeks or so before the Curtis Cup match.
Alternatively, introduce a 72-hole women's open amateur tournament in which the first round is foursomes, the second round four-balls, the third foursomes, and the fourth four-balls. From a time and money point of view, that might be a better idea. But the venue has to be Dun Laoghaire.
FOOTNOTE:
My old golfwriting friend, Jock MacVicar, had an article in the Scottish Daily Express on Tuesday this week. The theme was an old one: The Curtis Cup should go down the Ryder Cup road and become a Europe v USA match.
Tegwen Matthews is the first to concede that the best female amateur players in Europe, collectively, are Continentals. That's why they inflict some heavy defeats on GB and I in the Vagliano Trophy matches every two years.
By all means have a Europe v United States match - but not for the Curtis Cup. Some years, GB and I would not have a single player in the Europe line-up.
If that were the case, six men and a dog might turn up to watch a Europe v USA Curtis Cup match at a British venue.
It's not like a European team Ryder Cup line-up full of Continentals who are household names, thanks to newspaper and TV coverage of the European Tour.
Hands up those who could name the current top eight female Continetal amateurs. I thought so!
Even I would be pushed to name them and I follow female amateur golf, home and away, far more closely than most people.
So, Jock, yes - let's have a Europe v USA women's amateur match every two years, but make IT for the Vagliano Trophy. GB and I players, if they were good enough, could earn selection to that.
But don't touch the Curtis Cup.
CURTIS CUP MATCH AT IRISH VENUE
By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Colin@scottishgolfview.com
The best bit of post-Curtis Cup news I have received came from Breda Macquire, mother of the talented twins Leona and Lisa, pictured below.
She says that they will be available for selection for the 2016 match against the United States at Dun Laoghaire Golf Club, near Dublin.
Leona played in the cup-winning GB and I team at Nairn in June 2012 while Lisa has played in previous Curtis Cup matches.
They were not available for selection for the 2014 match because of school studies and exams. They will enrol at Duke University, which already has the best women's college golf team in America and I expect the Maguire girls' golf will benefit considerably from regular competition against quality opposition in the States.
It is impossible for me to pass judgment on the GB and I performance at St Louis Country Club, Missouri. I was not there so how can I either praise or criticise.
I am told that the GB and I players did not look confident over the first two days at the end of which the Americans were in almost uncatchable lead.
Do we need to enlist the services of a pyschologist in the build-up for the 20146 match? Or somebody like Sir Alex Ferguson who was one of the best team motivators football has ever seen. Something to think about.
The Irish factor - crowd fervour, etc - played a big part in Europe's Solheim Cup win when it was played at an Irish venue, and I think it will be an important plus factor at Dunlaoghaire two years from now.
Who know what young players will rise to Curtis Cup class by June 2016? Look how Annabel Dimmock improved in leaps and bounds from January this year to earn a place in Tegwen Matthews' team.
Georgia Hall is reported to be turning pro after defending the British open amateur title at Royal St George's GC, Kent in the last week of this month.
Stephanie Meadow, who is playing in next week's US Women's Open, will be a professional by then.
The LGU has done away with regular get-togethers of international squads. I suggest that they bring them back in the last few months before the 2016 Curtis Cup match, even if means the expense of bringing over the possible team members who are at college in America.
Aberdeen Asset Management's golf sponsorship bill must be astronomical but worth approaching their powers-that-be to come on board for the 2014 Curtis Cup build-up?
As skipper Matthews said in one of her Press Conferences at St Louise: "By the time the 2012 match was played at Nairn, we felt as if we knew every blade of grass there."
From this side of the Atlantic, the GB and I team did not play well either in the foursomes of the four-ball matches - and that adds up to 12 of the 20pt at stake over the three days.
What about this for out-of-the-box thinking by yours truly:
For the sole purpose of seeing who can and who can't play well together at Dun Laoghaire, let's have:
(a) An open better-ball pairs tournament at the Curtis Cup venue.
(b) An open foursomes tournament at the Curtis Cup venue.
Introduce them to the women's amateur golf calendar in the summer of 2015, when all the college girls should be home on vacation, and stage them again in April 2016 - six weeks or so before the Curtis Cup match.
Alternatively, introduce a 72-hole women's open amateur tournament in which the first round is foursomes, the second round four-balls, the third foursomes, and the fourth four-balls. From a time and money point of view, that might be a better idea. But the venue has to be Dun Laoghaire.
FOOTNOTE:
My old golfwriting friend, Jock MacVicar, had an article in the Scottish Daily Express on Tuesday this week. The theme was an old one: The Curtis Cup should go down the Ryder Cup road and become a Europe v USA match.
Tegwen Matthews is the first to concede that the best female amateur players in Europe, collectively, are Continentals. That's why they inflict some heavy defeats on GB and I in the Vagliano Trophy matches every two years.
By all means have a Europe v United States match - but not for the Curtis Cup. Some years, GB and I would not have a single player in the Europe line-up.
If that were the case, six men and a dog might turn up to watch a Europe v USA Curtis Cup match at a British venue.
It's not like a European team Ryder Cup line-up full of Continentals who are household names, thanks to newspaper and TV coverage of the European Tour.
Hands up those who could name the current top eight female Continetal amateurs. I thought so!
Even I would be pushed to name them and I follow female amateur golf, home and away, far more closely than most people.
So, Jock, yes - let's have a Europe v USA women's amateur match every two years, but make IT for the Vagliano Trophy. GB and I players, if they were good enough, could earn selection to that.
But don't touch the Curtis Cup.
Labels: CURTIS CUP
posted by Colin |
See story on its own page | 10:49:00 pm
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