‘An animal, a monster’: How GB&I’s greatest Walker Cupper took down Tiger Woods…

Just under 30 years ago, a Walker Cup match took place between two players who subsequently took different paths yet will be remembered as two of the best-ever golfers in their own spheres.

There were 16 years between Gary Wolstenholme and Tiger Woods in age, but they were equals when they were drawn to play each other on day one of the 1995 Walker Cup at Royal Porthcawl.

A nail-biting battle in Bridgend was building between two teams based on players that became successful in the professional world: Wolstenholme, Woods, Padraig Harrington, David Howell, Stepehn Gallacher, and Notah Begay III.

Before 1995, GB&I had won this biennial battle with the USA twice since 1947, about as one-sided as you could imagine. The Old Course at St Andrews was their last winning home in 1971 when Lanny Wadkins and Tom Kite played for the stars and stripes.

Asked if the lead-up to the 35th Walker Cup, a team match play event that pits the best amateurs from Great Britain and Ireland against the best from America, was dominated by the presence of Woods, Wolstenholme said to NCG:

“To a certain extent, it did because he turned up, he was ticking boxes. Basically, the year before he won the Eisenhower trophy for the USA team. He’d broken all the PAC-10 records, he’d won three US Junior Championships in a row, then two US Amateurs in a row, then went on to win it again the following year.

“So, he won six USGA Championships in a row, which was a phenomenal achievement. So basically, what he was doing, everything (Jack) Nicklaus had done, he was breaking Nicklaus’ records. He wanted to break Nicklaus’ record of the number of majors as well.”

ALSO: There is still nothing like watching Tiger Woods at a major

Gary Wolstenholme-Tiger Woods match a point that led to very different paths of success

Wolstenholme took several jobs to keep himself financially afloat during his amateur career that lasted until he turned pro when he was 47. He worked for a solicitors practice in Bristol, a job which he sourced from a fellow competitor playing in a Midlands vs South West match way back when.

He also worked as marketing manager at Kilworth Springs Golf Club in Leicester. Needless to say, a less glamorous path than Woods who was bound to graduate from amateur to professional and programmed to be a tournament-winning, money-earning machine by his father Earl from the moment he was physically able to hold a club.

“His father made him into who he became. He was an animal, a monster, what he could do on the golf course no other players could ever do because he was exceptional,” Wolstenholme said.

Even as an amateur that was still in his teens, Woods was writing new rules on how far to hit the ball, even with driver heads half the size and decades behind the innovation of the heads we have now.

But what Wolstenholme lacked in power in comparison with his spritely US opponent, he more than made up for in experience and pedigree. He won The Amateur Championship in 1991, beating Bob May 8&6 in the final, an American who lost to Woods in an epic battle at the 2000 PGA Championship at Valhalla.

Countless regional and international victories from China to the UAE preceded and came after this win in Yorkshire, diluting the David and Goliath picture people might’ve painted over Wolstenholme vs Woods on the afternoon of September 9 in Wales.

“That was a recurring theme (distance gap) pretty much all the way through,” he added. “At times, he was 100 yards past me. The fact is it had been such a nip and tuck match from the very beginning.

“It was a brilliant match that was right on a knife edge from start to finish. He could drive the 1st hole with an iron, I hit a 5-wood off the tee and wedged it on, we both made birdie.

“So, from the 1st hole to the 18th hole, I was the last match out, we had a one-point advantage so if I won my match, we had a two-point advantage which was critical. If we halved, we only had a one-point advantage going into the second day, or if I’d lost, we were on parity.

“It was absolutely critical that I won that game. I was very fortunate. My second shot just trickled off the right edge but pin high (approaching the 18th green, all square). It was a relatively straight forward shot, he hit his 1 iron up the left side, just missed the fairway into sort of tangly rough and the only place that you couldn’t miss was right.

“There was some very thick rough right, and he was in two minds as to what club to play. The ball was below his feet, he didn’t want to miss it right and he hoiked it left – and somehow the ball has bounced and gone into the out of bounds rough on the border just off the green.

“I said to my caddie, ‘Look, he could drop a ball, knock it on the green and make five’. I’ve still got to make sure whatever happens (make a par). All credit to him at the age of 19, he stands and waits for the signal to say yes, it’s out of bounds.

“He knocks his next shot on to the green to 15 feet, I then chip my ball to two and a half feet and basically, he has a putt which lipped out or shaved the hole and then he conceded my putt to win the match.”

Making his Walker Cup debut at 35 years old, Wolstenholme beat a player touted for all manner of future success. GB&I went on to comfortably win the tournament 14-10.

ALSO: Does Tiger Woods deserve his own exemption category on the PGA Tour?

Woods got his revenge on Wolstenholme in the final singles match on the second day in a 4&3 victory. But Howell, Gallacher, Gordon Sherry and Jody Flanagan had seen to it in the first four of eight Sunday singles matches that the Walker Cup’s outcome was done by this point.

Wolstenholme would play in five more Walker Cup teams, and three more winning ones. He became GB&I’s all-time points scorer and is the record holder of caps for England Golf. The Walker Cup became the Walkover Cup in GB&I’s favour for the first time.

GB&I won three of the next four trophies, including in Sea Island, Georgia in 2001. Before contributing to the first GB&I side to retain the cup, Wolstenholme and his teammates were treated to a visit from a very special guest at Ocean Forest Golf Club.

“George Herbert Walker (whom the Cup is named after) was the grandfather to George Bush Snr, so he turned up at Sea Island as George Herbert Walker’s family and we had an amazing experience of getting the opportunity to chat with the President of the United States, and of course, we won that Walker Cup.”

In the same year the man born in Egham won his second Amateur Championship at Troon in 2003, Woods was winless in the majors for the first time in 1998. Nonetheless, he was a nine-time major champion and a grand slam holder. It has transpired that only Jack Nicklaus has won more majors than him in the history of the game.

Before his England selections began to dry up, Wolstenholme won two more European Mid-Amateurs in 2006 and 2007 and then entered the professional fray in 2008. Although he also found success on the European Seniors Tour, now the Legends Tour which he still plays on, Wolstenholme’s legacy is in the amateur game, the grassroots.

His epic with Woods 29 years ago was one of many building blocks that made the foundation of his admirable amateur career, which was rewarded in March with his addition to the England Golf Hall of Fame. It was Woods’ sole Walker Cup appearance.

“There’s a lot to be proud of,” he added. “I look back and people reel these things off. My father was a very good amateur – he played for England 50 times, and he won tournaments that I’d won, so our names are on the same trophy. I don’t think there’s many amateur father and sons that have achieved what we’ve achieved.

“I’m very, very lucky that I’ve had those experiences. I’ve met Presidents – I’ve been very lucky to have these opportunities to travel the world at somebody else’s expense.”

NOW READ: Who caddies for Tiger Woods?

NOW READ: Tiger Woods schedule: Where will the GOAT play next?

Enjoy this Gary Wolstenholme-Tiger Woods story? Follow NCG on X!

Gary Wolstenholme is playing in the Tour Players Pro-Am at Walmer and Kingsdown Golf Club in Kent on Tuesday, September 3. Click here to head to the club’s website for more details.