USGA's "Walker Cup Needs New Selection Process"
Some people sample fine wines, GolfChannel.com's Ryan Lavner tracks the always-flawed Walker Cup team selection process. And while you might not care about the plight of college golfers snubbed because they don't fit the team room dynamic, or mid-ams because they didn't play well enough, the entire mess is important if you'd like to see amateur golf survive.
Unfortunately, as Lavner lays out, this appears to be yet another blow for an amateur game that is already struggling to keep top players from turning pro before the Walker Cup. (Even as great as the event has been.)
The latest top talent to be passed over by the committee working in secret, LSU's Sam Burns, is the Nicklaus Award winner and sports a resume as strong as the last LSU player passed over for suspicious reasons, John Peterson.
Lavner calls the oversight "egregious" and writes:
By almost any metric, Burns should have been a lock for the U.S. team. Three months ago, the LSU sophomore earned the Nicklaus Award, given to the top college player. Drawing significant interest from sponsors and tournament directors, he could have turned pro in June but opted instead to wait until after the Walker Cup in September. It should not have been a risk, but that decision proved costly: Last month he played the Barbasol Championship, an opposite-field event on the PGA Tour, and tied for sixth. Because he was an amateur, however, he forfeited a $113,000 payday and sacrificed other playing opportunities.
Burns was the Division I player of the year. He remained amateur through the summer. He starred in a Tour event. It’s unclear what else he could have done to show the committee how much making the team meant to him, save for getting an American flag tattoo.
Peterson took to Twitter and attacked the USGA:
How r u going 2 keep the next generation of great college players from turning pro if u constantly prove its 100% politics @WalkerCup #2011
— John Peterson (@JohnPetersonPGA) August 21, 2017
The mid-amateur world is also upset, though in such a wide open year, the over-25 set had their chances to make the team and failed. This did not stop former U.S. Mid-Amateur winner Scott Harvey from protesting:
Another sad day for Mid Ams. The message @USGA has sent to Mid Ams this year isn't very positive.
— Scott Harvey (@ScottHarvey78) August 20, 2017
Besides the biennial oversight issue, the lack of a running points list and sense of momentum leading to the team selection hurts the marketability of the event. For better or worse, team cup points lists keep us aware of who is in the running. The Walker Cup, however, is selected in private and therefore, is conducted in private.
Monday, August 21, 2017 at 09:51 PM
Reader Comments (19)
Newsflash, team selections at every level, involve politics.
Which is generally what attracts athletes to golf-an individual sport,
From Walker Cup selection to Nominating & Executive Committee incest, from fear of taking on the ball to fear of intelligently modernizing the rules, the blue bloods of Far Hills once again remind the rest of the golfing world of their perpetual mishandling of this great game. Only once they purge themselves of those cretinish tools who pass for today's guardians of the game and sit on their various committees, and replace them with people whose genuine love and respect for the game goes far beyond the gates of Augusta, Tuckahoe Road, or other highly-gated environs will the USGA ever again earn my respect of get one of my nickels.
What I witnessed Sunday afternoon was the oldest golf tournament in America in its 117th year see a player dormie on the 17th tee, buckle up and come racing back to win it all three holes later, and it barely registered a blip on ESPN, any of the sports sites, and even worse, just a ten-second clip on Golf Channel.
Absolutely paltry affair!
The implication was that publicizing the Walker Cup selection process could save amateur golf...don't you think that's a bit overdone?
The finish on Sunday was incredible and worthy of all the praise one could heap on it...but the game has never drawn eyes to non-marque players, has it?
Oh, wait, he didn't win ANYThing? Oh never mind.
... If they'd kept the 2014 qualifying system Justin Thomas would've made the 2016 team on points (with the changes, he didn't finish Top 20). In retrospect, he seems like he would've been a pretty good choice.
... Even worse, if they'd been using the new qualifying system in 2014, Ryder Cup hero Patrick Reed almost certainly would NOT have made the team! He would've missed the Top 8 by two spots and the odds of circa-2014 Patrick Reed being a "captains" pick with the focus on "team chemistry" would've been slightly less than zero!
By the way how many of the folks here, there and everywhere kvetching about the selection process are actually going to watch the Walker Cup?