WALKER CUP

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 74, 7 January 1949, Page 6

WALKER CUP

BRITAIN TO CHALLENGE (By Airmail) LONDON. News that Great Britain will challenge for the Walker Cup next year has pleased British golfers who realise the value of international sporting encounters which are all lor the good of the game, no matter what form they take. The rank and file of British golf can, too, take credit for the fact that the match will he played next year, a comment which may demand a little investigation.

It will be recalled that Britain, for the first time since the biennial golf match of pre-war days was first played in 1922, won at Saint Andrews in 1938. Then came the war before they could cross the Atlantic in defence of the trophy. By rights they should have travelled when the encounter was resumed after the war but finance, or lack of it, reared its ugly head and there was little chance of a revival of the match in 1947. America, however, keen to get the game started once more decided to waive such rights and they themselves visited Britain, out of turn, and proceeded to regain the Walker Cup at Saint Andrews, 1947. The question then arose as to what would happen two years later 1949. The match, now revived and with the old rule that it should be played in alternate years unaltered, had been started and Britain could not very well expect the American team to travel again, and yet, their financial position hardly justified a hurried decision to set'by a matter of five or six thousand sterling to defray the expenses of a British team visiting America. So the Royal and Ancient Club, the ruling body of British golf, turned to the clubs and asked them to agree to a scheme whereby clubs would subscribe a sum equivalent to the annual subscription of one member. The response was so good that the Royal and Ancient Club decided that they could nroceed with the Walker Cup match and a Dominion tour which was a proposed pre-war programme that, because of the financial situation, threatened to collapse in the post-war years. A British golf team, therefore, will cross the Atlantic next year in a bid to win the trophy for the first time on American soil. Date and climatic conditions may not be too much against the travellers because August 19 and 20 has been chosen as the dates and the coursb will be the Winged Food Club’s at Mamaroneck just outside New York.—Reuter.