With the Walker Cup nearly two months away, the United States Golf Association announced Thursday its first three selections to represent the Americans at the Old Course at St. Andrews in September.
Gordon Sargent, Michael Thorbjornsen and David Ford, the top-three golfers in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, will don red, white and blue for the United States in the 49th Walker Cup, set for Sept. 2-3 in Scotland.
“Gordon, Michael and David are fantastic additions to the team,” U.S. captain Mike McCoy said in a release. “Not only have all three of these young men had impressive seasons, resulting in these automatic selections, but they are future stars of our game who bring immense talent, enthusiasm and camaraderie to the team. Having them included in the experience at the Old Course is something I am very much looking forward to both personally and as team captain.”
The USGA’s International Team Selection working group will name a second set of additional players to the 10-member team in late July and will name the final selections to the team and alternates immediately following the U.S. Amateur Championship. The winner of the 2023 U.S. Amateur, set for Aug. 14-20 at Cherry Hills Country Club in Colorado, and the recipient of the 2023 McCormack Medal, should they be American, will earn the final automatic spots onto the team. The Walker Cup Match is a 10-man amateur team competition between the USA and Great Britain and Ireland. The Old Course has hosted eight previous Walker Cups, more than any other venue, most recently in 1975, when the USA defeated GB&I, 15½-8½, led by future U.S. Open champions Jerry Pate and Curtis Strange.
Sargent, a junior at Vanderbilt, won low amateur honors last week at the 2023 U.S. Open and has won five times in college. And if he participates in the Walker Cup (as he’s expected to), Sargent will be up to 18 points in PGA Tour University Accelerated, meaning he’s only two points shy of automatically securing a PGA Tour card.
Thorbjornsen also qualified for the U.S. Open, his third time in the major championship. He won the Pac-12 Championship for Stanford last month and was named the conference’s Golfer of the Year. Ford, a fellow first-team All-American, was named ACC Player of the Year and led North Carolina to the semifinals of match play at the NCAA Championship in Scottsdale, Arizona.