While Lahinch looks forward to hosting the Walker Cup for the first time in September, the famous links on the County Clare coast has an association with amateur golf’s greatest tournament dating back over 100 years.
Labelled as Lahinch’s greatest golfer, John Burke arrived at the club in 1928, and not long after Dr Alister Mackenzie began constructing a new 18-hole course there, making the finest and most popular golf course that he, or he believed anyone else, ever constructed, so he said.
Burke won the South of Ireland Championship, and then again three times after, all at Lahinch. His run stopped in 1932, but he wouldn’t have minded, given he qualified to make his debut for the Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup team to take on America at The Country Club at Brookline in Massachusetts.
That year, there were only two sessions: the Thursday foursomes and Friday singles. Burke and his partner Bill Stout were beaten 7&6 by George Dunlap and playing captain Francis Ouimet – winner of the US Open 19 years previous. Leonard Crawley was the only GB&I player to win a match, in the singles against George Voigt.
A cricketer for Essex, Crawley provided the highlight of the event on the 18th, when a wayward shot struck and dented the Walker Cup trophy.
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Perhaps this is the craft GB&I team captain Dean Robertson would like his players to show at Lahinch this time around. The Scotsman is taking the reins for a second year in a row, and will want to right the wrongs of 2025, where America took victory at Cypress Point in rampant fashion (17-9).
“You’ve got to be straight off the tee,” Robertson said. “It’s going to be quite a strategic golf course. Power plays a part, but short approach play and being able to control your ball flight in the wind is going to be key.
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“It’s not going to be a bomber’s golf course. You’re going to have to have craft to get around there.
“I love the golf course,” he added. “My favourites are the second shots on the 6th and the 7th, looking out to the Atlantic.
“The key driving holes like 10, 15, 17 and 18 – the longer holes like the 2nd, the 4th, the 12th, the 18th – the players that hit the ball longer, there’s going to be factors in foursomes play in there, the way the golf course lends itself.
“You’ve got the 13th – the short par-4 that’s driveable. From a match play standpoint, it’s going to be exciting.
“One thing I have asked of Lahinch is to let the golf course be natural, be the brilliant golf course that it is, and let’s not have the greens too fast.”
The Walker Cup hasn’t visited Ireland since 2007, when Royal County Down had the privilege. GB&I narrowly lost by a point and, apart from recording two victories since then, a one-point defeat has been the nearest thing that the GB&I team can shout about in this era dominated by the United States.
One curly-haired part of that team took the form of Rory McIlroy, who is also a member of the Lahinch fan club: “The teams that are going to be playing at Lahinch are in for an incredible experience on an unbelievable golf course.”
| Lahinch Golf Club |
| Founded in 1892 and newly designed by Old Tom Morris in 1894 |
| Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley, and Graeme McDowell have all won the South of Ireland Championship at Lahinch |
| Hosted 2019 Irish Open |
| Also features the Castle Course |
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The Old Course you see at Lahinch now is largely down to the work of Dr Martin Hawtree who, in 1999, modernised the golf course using sand dunes closer to the Atlantic Ocean, and 14 greens were redesigned.
In 2019, Jon Rahm won the Irish Open at Lahinch, following up on his victory at the event two years before at Portstewart. The championship course produced a memorable winner, something that Hawtree and the club will no doubt have relished and envisaged after the changes of 20 years before, and there is no doubt that the 51st Walker Cup will do the same.
To attempt to stem the tide and stop a rot of five defeats in a row, Robertson intends to soak in Irish golf to its fullest this summer, as well as take the team on a trip to one of Ireland’s other world-class venues.
“Lahinch is unique. There are a lot of run-offs in terms of the greens. It’s shorter than some of them, but it will be a fantastic match play golf course,” he said.
“In our preparation, I don’t know what the US team have got planned, I imagine they will go to Doonbeg given who owns it, but we’re not going there.
“We’re going to go to Ballybunion. I thought about Tralee, but I’ll be over for the Arnold Palmer Cup for the first week in July, and I’ll make a point of stopping at Lahinch to see how things are going.”
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The 51st Walker Cup is being played at Lahinch Golf Club on September 5-6, 2026.
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