Americans take opening foursomes

3-1 in Walker Cup at Merion

FROM THE DAILY TELEGRAPH WEBSITE
By MARK REASON
Britain and Ireland are trying to win the Walker Cup with a team of kids, and it was the more experienced Americans who took a surge of momentum into the afternoon singles at Merion Golf Club. They won the morning foursomes 3-1, an advantage that almost always leads to victory in the two-day, four sessions of play event.
Brian Harman, who helped the Americans to a 2 & 1 win in the crucial opening game, played in the Walker Cup four years ago with Anthony Kim. When he saw Kim partnering Phil Mickelson at last year's Ryder Cup, Harman texted him: "I'm still the best left-hander you're ever played with."
Harman was certainly too good for Wallace Booth and Sam Hutsby at the top of the order.
But the crusher for Colin Dalgelish's team came in the second match of the day. Walking off the 16th green Gavin Dear and Matt Haines were ahead against Peter Uihlein and Nathan Smith, but they lost both of the final two holes.
Stiggy Hodgson and Niall Kearney won the final match of the morning for GB&I, thanks to some fiendish putting from Hodgson. The 19-year-old said: "Putting is the strongest part of my game. Anywhere inside of 10 feet and I can be fairly deadly."
When did we last hear such words from an Englishman in America. But although Hodgson's brilliance on the greens limited the morning deficit to two points, you have to go back to 1995 to find the last time a team came back to win after losing the opening round of foursomes.
Padraig Harrington, who played on that winning team 14 years ago against an American side that included Tiger Woods, was yesterday trying to catch Woods for the lead of the BMW Championship.
The BMW is the penultimate tournament of a FedExCup series that culminates in a $10 million bonus next week. Harrington said: "They should give out the cash on the 18th green. We could take it in a wheelbarrow up to the clubhouse. Anything that falls out, it's the caddie's."
Remind me why these amateurs want to turn pro so quickly.
Eighteen months ago Chris Wood was playing amateur foursomes for England with Hutsby and harbouring Walker Cup ambitions. The haystack-haired one then finished fifth in the Open Championship and turned pro.
Already this season Wood has earned over half a million pounds in prize money and he goes into the final round of the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Cologne just three shots behind Peter Hanson of Sweden.
Wood salvaged a bogey on the final hole after being advised by on-course commentator Wayne Riley that he was about to take an illegal drop from a hazard. Should Riley have intervened? Is it fair that the leaders benefit from advice that would not be available to others further down the field. It doesn't sound like equity.
SCOREBOARD TO COME