In just three months Dean Robertson will lead a GB & I Walker Cup team in seeking to achieve a feat that in 49 prior encounters has been accomplished just twice before.
This is to win the gleaming ‘International Challenge’ trophy of U.S. soil.
The former double DP World Tour winning Scot will take a dozen of GB & Is top amateur golfers to the famed Alister MacKenzie designed Cypress Point golf course also looking to lower the Stars and Stripes colours for a first occasion in 10 years after a stunning seven-shot success in 2015 at Royal Lytham and St. Annes.
“I am absolutely delighted and thrilled to have been afforded the opportunity to captain GB & I later this year into competition at Cypress Point”, said Robertson speaking at Dumbarnie Links.
“It was big part of my own golfing career to have represented Scotland and then to have represented Great Britain and Ireland in the 1993 Walker Cup. It was huge in my own career development.
“We went over there in ’93 to Interlachen and were heavily beaten but one thing we never had back then, and that was we did not have an insight in how to prepare well”.
Robertson will look to do so with the help of long-time good friend, fellow Scot and past 1993 GB & I ‘Foursomes’ partner Raymond Russell who Robertson appointed as his Assistant Captain.
Walker Cup captain Dean Robertson and his fellow Scot and assistant captain Raymond Russell at Dumbarnie Links. Image GolfByTourMiss
“So, with my old Foursomes partner from all those years ago in Raymond Russell along with Kath O’Connor (Welsh golfer) this has become a real team effort.
“I had been appointed captain of the GB & I team on February 24th last year, and in the first year with the hosting of the St. Andrews Trophy at Royal Porthcawl in August last year it proved really challenging.
“I am working at the University of Stirling, so I was not that really connected to any of the players and with last year really about establishing a relationship and getting to know the players, follow them on the golf course, understand their games and understand them as individuals.
“Where we are in the process is that we are here this week at Dumbarnie Links ahead of coming into the last three months with three major qualifying events the St. Andrews Links Trophy (6th to 8th June), the Amateur Championship at Royal St. George’s (16th to 21st June) and the European Men’s Amateur Championship (June 25th to 28th) in Varastorp, Sweden.
“Then at the conclusion of those events I will select a GB & I team to compete against Europe for the St. Andrews Trophy that is being held from July 24th to 25th at the Real Club de la Puerto de Hierro club in Spain”.
Robertson indicated that the team he will assemble to take to Spain at the end of next month will be ‘similar’ to the team he’ll take to Cypress Point.
Robertson, as mentioned, was speaking Monday from Dumbarnie Links where he has assembled 12 Walker Cup squad members in readiness for the Walker Cup.
GB & I Walker Cup captain Dean Robertson (blue top right in background) watching players tee-off Monday at Dumbarnie Links. Dumbarnie Links General Manager David Scott (also blue top to the left of Robertson) watches on and so too Assistant Captain Raymond Russell (black cap left in image). Photograph – GolfByTourMiss
Well done to Dumbarnie Links providing special Walker Cup theme tee markers on the opening tee. Image – GolfByTourMiss
The dozen players arrived at Dumbarnie Links accompanied by Robertson and Russell ahead of playing eight holes on Monday and then a full 18-holes on the famed former Scottish Women’s Championship venue today (Tuesday). Among them is England’s in-form Eliot Baker, brilliant seven-shot winner of Sunday’s Scottish Amateur Championship at North Berwick and winner earlier this year of the Portuguese Amateur.
“There is a lot of players playing this week in the Arnold Palmer Cup who would have been here in Dumbarnie Links but that does not exclude them from being selected”, said Robertson.
“So, there is other players on my selection radar”.
One of those being Connor Graham, who as a 16-year-old made his Walker Cup debut two years ago at St. Andrews, and with Robertson assuring Graham will be a key member of his Cypress Point side.
While Robertson looked clearly to be enjoying this newest challenge in his outstanding career, he was also full of praise for Dumbarnie Links in hosting his 12-man Walker Cup squad.
And Dumbarnie Links is to be congratulated for getting behind the two days with 2025 Walker Cup signage, reserved areas on the practice range and a specially prepared commemorative scorecard for Tuesday’s 18-holer.
“David Scott, the GM here at Dumbarnie Links along with Grahame Taylor, the course supervisor and the staff here have been unbelievable in putting these two days together”, said Robertson.
Commemorative Dumbarnie Links scorecard for Monday’s competition. Image GolfByTourMiss
“We’re hear really gearing-up for two events. We’re hear preparing for our journey to Madrid and then Cypress Point but more so Cypress Point as it such a niche golf course.
“Cypress Point is some 6,550-yards long, so the clubs my team will be receiving have to be significant and different.
“I have visited Cypress and it’s unque as you have got to be able to control your shots, and’s something we are working on over these couple of days here at Dumbarnie Links.
“I was at Cypress Point last October, spending a couple of days learning the golf course, speaking to the USGA and understanding everything about the logistics of what we need when we arrive on site.
“I also invited 10 leading GB & I players from around the US universities to come along where we had a two-day training session, learning and understanding what can only be described as an Alister MacKenzie designed masterpiece golf course.
“There are certain skills you must require and they are the certain skills you would need to master is you were playing a shorter version of Augusta National.
“Cypress Point is going to be a real golfing treat”.
Roberston indicated it is the role of the USGA to set-up the course and indicated that Cypress Point in going to be the ‘star of the show’, and both teams to be prepared for fast, firm greens.
“It is an exceptionally strategic golf course and a little like Augusta this year when we watched a few of the elderly greats of the game competing such as Bernhard Langer and Freddie Couples competing”, said Roberston.
“They were giving up so much length to younger brigade of golfers but then they still showed us how to unlock the strategy needed to play the golf course. So, strategy is going to play a massive part in our preparation when we arrive at Cypress Point.
“Because if you get the ball out of position at Cypress Point you just cannot play the golf course”.
