Great Britain and Ireland secured an impressive win at the St Andrews Trophy in Spain, easing to a 16\u00bd-8\u00bd triumph over the Continent of Europe.<\/p>\n
At Real Club de la Puerta de Hierro, GB&I reclaimed the trophy won by the Continent of Europe at Royal Porthcawl last year.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s Luke Poulter, son of Ian, took GB&I over the winning line with a one-hole victory over Gunnlaugur Arni Sveinsson from Iceland. Poulter, 21, finished in style when he holed his bunker shot for an eagle on the 18th to seal the success, moments after Sveinsson had made his own remarkable eagle from 100 feet.<\/p>\n
GB&I Captain Dean Robertson watched his side win all four sessions over the two days of the match, including two unbeaten foursomes sessions. Robertson\u2019s fellow Scot Cameron Adam won all four of his ties as he shone in Spain.<\/p>\n
GB&I now hold the Curtis Cup, the Vagliano Trophy and the St Andrews Trophy thanks to a hat-trick of successes inside the last year.<\/p>\n
Former European Tour winner Robertson, who will also lead GB&I against the United States of America in the Walker Cup at Cypress Point in September, looked for a fast start and his team achieved it.<\/p>\n
GB&I headed into day two with an 8-4 advantage, needing just five more points to win back the trophy. Their success yesterday was underpinned by almost claiming maximum points from the morning foursomes ties, winning the session 3\u00bd-\u00bd.<\/p>\n
Their momentum continued this morning after another unbeaten foursomes display, again claiming the session 3\u00bd-\u00bd to build a commanding 11\u00bd-4\u00bd lead. England\u2019s Tyler Weaver and Connor Graham from Scotland won both of their foursomes matches, as did another English-Scottish pairing of Dominic Clemons and Adam.<\/p>\n
Graham and Adam both qualified to play in The 153rd Open at Royal Portrush last week and they continued to impress in Spain.<\/p>\n
With GB&I needing just one-and-a-half points from the final nine singles for outright victory, Weaver was six up after just eight holes against Filip Jakubcik \u2013 the European Amateur Champion who also competed at Royal Portrush \u2013 before sealing a 6&5 win. Weaver was unbeaten across his four matches, winning three-and-a-half points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tim Wiedemeyer from Germany pulled a point back for the home side after inflicting a first defeat for Graham by the margin of 4&3, before Poulter\u2019s magic at the last secured the overall team victory. Poulter was also unbeaten in four games, so too winning three-and-a-half points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
France\u2019s Hugo Le Goff and Claes Thrane Borregaard from Denmark then delivered singles wins for the hosts, but GB&I\u2019s Gavin Tiernan secured his first point of the match after beating Swede Alfons Bondesson 3&2.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s Eliot Baker also ended the overall match unbeaten, finishing with a victory over Spain\u2019s Sergio Jimenez Romero by one hole. Estonian Richard Teder, another amateur to play at Royal Portrush last week, beat Stuart Grehan 2&1 before Adam closed with a triumph over Dane Kristian Hjort Bressum by 2&1.<\/p>\n
In the last six stagings of the St Andrews Trophy, GB&I have now won three times and retained the trophy after a draw at Prince\u2019s in 2016.<\/p>\n
Dean Robertson, St Andrews Trophy Captain for Great Britain and Ireland said:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cI\u2019m absolutely thrilled. There has been a real togetherness and cohesion. It\u2019s been great getting to know the players over the last 18 months. The preparations for this week started at the back end of last year, watching them play and learning about their games.<\/p>\n \u201cFor them to come here, prepare as well as we did and then to execute by winning all four sessions certainly surpassed my expectations. It was a brilliant, brilliant performance and I\u2019m so proud of them all. Everyone contributed to the points total. GB&I winning three team trophies in the last year (at men\u2019s and women\u2019s level) is very impressive and I\u2019m absolutely thrilled.<\/p>\n \u201cLuke (Poulter\u2019s) finish was incredible. There was great drama on the final green and his holed bunker shot was a fitting way to sign off the team victory. Cameron (Adam) was an outstanding leader within the team and there is some phenomenal talent overall.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to enjoy this, celebrate it, reflect on it and then take a wee trip to face the USA in the Walker Cup. We\u2019re the underdogs and we\u2019ll give it our best shot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Great Britain and Ireland secured an impressive win at the St Andrews Trophy in Spain, easing to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,109237,109234,393,4884,109233,68721,74898,1144,109235,109236,712,104,108691,16,15,1764,109238],"class_list":{"0":"post-294088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-cameron-adam","12":"tag-continent-of-europe","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-great-britain-and-ireland","16":"tag-ian-poulter","17":"tag-luke-poulter","18":"tag-northern-ireland","19":"tag-real-club-de-la-puerta-de-hierro","20":"tag-royal-porthcawl","21":"tag-scotland","22":"tag-spain","23":"tag-st-andrews-trophy","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-united-kingdom","26":"tag-wales","27":"tag-walker-cup"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114921273080801783","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}