LOS ANGELES, CA (December 14, 2016) -- The goal
for
the 10 members of the Team USA 2017 Walker Cup
squad is a simple one: win back the cup. On
Wednesday 16
Team
USA hopefuls will be onsite at host course Los
Angeles
Country Club for a Walker Cup practice session.
When
the biennial event was last played in 2015 at Royal
Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club host Great Britain and
Ireland won by a 16.5-9.5 tally.
1999 Walker Cup team member and two-time
U.S.
Mid- Amateur winner John “Spider” Miller is back for
his
second spin as Team USA captain and he will be
charged with the task of defending home soil for the
fourth consecutive time. The last time that GB&I
went
on the road and were victorious stateside was in
2001
when they won 15-9 at Ocean Forest Golf Club.
Here is a look at the 16 players that will be
heading
to sunny Southern California at the end of the week
with the hopes of being back and competing for the
ultimate prize on September 9-10 of next year:
| NAME
|
ACCOMPLISHMENTS |
| Dawson Armstrong | A
junior at
Lipscomb, Armstrong had a monster summer in
2015
winning the Western Amateur and Dogwood
Invitational. During the summer of 2016 Armstrong
reached the Round of 32 at the U.S. Mid-Amateur,
finished tied for second at the Tennessee Open while
also sharing second at the Dogwood Invitational.
|
|
| Sean Crocker |
Born in
Zimbabwe but living in the states since 2002,
Crocker is
a junior at USC and is coming off a strong summer
that
included a win at the Monroe Invitational and four
other
top-5 Golfweek/AmateurGolf.com Ranking finishes.
Crocker earned All-American honors in 2015 and he
is a
two-time All-Pac 12 performer. | |
| Brad Dalke | The Oklahoma
sophomore
showed his mettle in major competition when he
made
it to the title match of the U.S. Amateur before
falling to
Curtis Luck. | |
| Doug
Ghim |
Now a junior, Ghim has been a stalwart in the
Texas lineup since his arrival in Austin. During his
first
two seasons Ghim has twice been named to the All-
Big
12 team and in 2016 he was a Jack Nicklaus Award
semifinalist. Ghim has team experience after playing
on
the 2016 Palmer Cup team. | |
| Gavin Hall | Playing his final season
for
the Longhorns, Hall has been named to the All-Big
12
team each of the last two seasons and in 2016, like
his
teammate Ghim, he was a semifinalist for the Jack
Nicklaus Award. During his junior year he medaled
on
two occasions and over the summer he finished
second
at the Porter Cup. | |
| Stewart
Hagestad | Hagestad is of course the
U.S.
Mid-Amateur champion after his remarkable rally in
September from four holes down with six holes to
play.
The former USC Trojan is also a member of Los
Angeles
Country Club, something that could work in his
favor.
| |
| Scott Harvey |
2016 was another outstanding year for Harvey
who won the George C. Thomas Invitational at Los
Angeles Country Club. Harvey nearly won his second
U.S. Mid-Amateur title until he fell victim to the
Hagestad rally. With a third place finish at the Porter
Cup and a trip to match play at the U.S. Amateur,
Harvey has once more shown that he can play with
the
college kids, something that will most likely work in
his
favor come selection time. Harvey was a member of
the
2015 Walker Cup team. | |
| Nick
Hardy | Hardy is in the midst of his
junior
year at Illinois and it has already been a career to
envy.
Last summer Hardy played in his second U.S. Open
(15
and 16) after earning his ticket through qualifying.
He
was the 2015 Big Ten Freshman of the Year thanks
in
part to sharing medalist honors at the conference
championship. | |
| Rico
Hoey |
Three-times an All-American and three-times
an
All-Pac 12 first teamer, the USC senior already has a
win this year, claiming the Gifford Collegiate. During
the
the summer months Hoey won the Southern
California
Amateur with a historically low 19-under tally and
also
competed on the 2016 Team USA Palmer Cup team.
| |
| Maverick McNealy |
McNealy, the top-ranked amateur in the World
Amateur Golf Rankings is in search of his second
Walker
Cup appearance to go along with two Palmer Cup
appearances. McNealy kicked off the first half of his
senior season at Stanford with a win at the Nike Golf
Collegiate Invitational. The win gave McNealy 11 for
his
Cardinal career tying him with Tiger Woods and
Patrick
Rodgers for the all-time program mark. | |
| Dylan Meyer | Few players
had
a better summer than Meyer. The Illinois junior
began
the summer with a tie fourth at the Sunnehanna
Amateur before kicking into high gear in August with
a
win at the Western Amateur and a quarterfinal run
at
the U.S. Amateur. In the Western and U.S Amateur
Meyer squared off with Sean Crocker in two
memorable
matches, winning both. | |
| Collin
Morikawa | Only a sophomore at Cal,
Morikawa has started his career in fine form
finishing
inside the top-10 in nine of his 17 career events. He
also claimed the 2015 Trans-Mississippi
Championship,
AGC 2016 Silicon Valley Amateur presented by
Callaway
Golf and the 2016 Sunnehanna Amateur. |
|
John Oda | A native of Honolulu,
Hawaii, Oda is a junior at UNLV where he has twice
been named to the All-Mountain West team and
honorable mention All-American list. During the fall
season Oda captured medalist honors at John Pate
Intercollegiate. | | Scottie
Scheffler |
The third member of the Texas Longhorns at
the
Walker Cup practice session, Scheffler is a junior
who
has had an impressive first two years of college. In
2015 he was the Phil Mickelson Freshman of the
Year
and the Big 12 Conference champion. Scheffler
played
in the U.S. Open at Oakmont this past June. |
| Jimmy Stanger | 2016 has
been
a year filled with high profile finishes for Stanger, a
senior at Virginia. Some of the more notable finishes
included a win at the Southern Amateur and a run to
the Round of 16 at the U.S. Amateur. More recently
Stanger shared the medalist honors at the Golf Club
of
Georgia Collegiate. | | Will
Zalatoris |
The month of July on the amateur circuit
belonged
to Will Zalatoris. First he won the Trans-Mississippi
Championship and then he followed it up with a
victory
at the Pacific Coast Amateur. Now a junior at Wake
Forest, Zalatoris was named an honorable mention
All-
American for his work during the 2015-2016 season.
In
June Zalatoris played for Team USA in the Palmer
Cup.
| |