Europeans pounce to snatch glory

IF THE two teams representing the Continent of Europe declared something of a shift in the balance of power with successes over Great Britain and Ireland in both the St Andrews Trophy and the boys’ Jacques Leglise Trophy matches at Portmarnock on Saturday, such affirmation was only delivered with old-fashioned drama.

We’d late, unexpected collapses. We’d outrageous birdies. We had it all.

In the end, out of all of the hundreds of strokes delivered on a pristine links in often tough conditions, with a stubbornly stiff south-westerly wind forcing players to demonstrate their full range of shot-making skills, a 30-foot birdie putt from off the 17th green by Moritz Lampert in the final singles with Kevin Phelan enabled the continentals to retain the St Andrews Trophy on a 12 ½ to 11 ½ winning margin.

It completed a clean sweep for the continent of Europe, who had earlier beaten GBI by 13½ points to 10½ in the Leglise Trophy, where 14-year-old Dominic Foos – you’ll be seeing a lot of him in the years to come – was the star man for the team in amassing an unbeaten three and a half points from his four matches over Friday and Saturday.

The double success was the first time in the matches’ history that the continentals had claimed both titles on away territory.

And, yet, in the St Andrews Trophy, there was almost a sense the GBI team had managed to snatch defeat from the cusp of a victory. Think about it. The home team’s two main men – Alan Dunbar, the British Amateur champion, and Rhys Pugh, the European amateur champion – were each within sight of the finishing line and in dominant positions only to fall at the death.

Dunbar was one-up on Sweden’s Robert Karlsson as he played his approach into the 472 yards Par 4 17th hole. The shot looked to be a good one, but flew through the green and into heavy rough. Dunbar had no option other than to declare the lie unplayable, but was forced to move further and further towards the 18th fairway to find relief. He ran up a double bogey six.

Then, on the 18th hole, after Karlsson’s approach went through the green, Dunbar missed the green left and found a horrid lie. He failed to find the putting surface with his recovery, and ran up another double-bogey, losing the hole to a bogey. He’d lost.

Pugh’s collapse was equally damaging to GBI’s cause.

The Welshman was three up with four to play against Spain’s Jacobo Pastor but lost the 15th and 16th. Pugh had a three-footer to win the match on the 17th, but missed, and then pulled his approach left of the 18th green and failed to get up-and-down and lost the hole to Pastor’s par for a halved match. When Lampert, in the last singles, ran in his birdie putt from off the 17th, it sealed the deal for the continentals.

“If two of your best players finish like that, you’re not going to win. Simple as,” said GBI captain Nigel Edwards. “It was very much there to be won. Rhys was three up with four to play. Alan was one up with two to play.

“You’d fancy your chances with that, wouldn’t you? European amateur champion, British amateur champion, you’d have thought so . . . . I’m disappointed, naturally.

“Fair play to the continentals, they played right to the wire. They holed the putts coming down the closing holes. . . they deserve the victory . . . they played hard, fought for every point, played with passion and played right to the end,” added Edwards, who will now prepare a team to defend the Walker Cup against the Americans next year. It is unlikely Dunbar will be available by then as he is intent on bidding for his European Tour card at Q-school.