the great britain & ireland walker cup team was final-
ized last week, with five englishman (steven brown,
tom lewis, Jack senior, stiggy hodgson and andy
sullivan), two irishmen (paul cutler and alan dunbar),
two scots (James byrne and michael stewart) and
a welshman (rhys pugh) making up the 10-player
squad. as often happens in team situations—especial-
ly with the rigidly political nature of any gb&i squad—
there was some second-guessing of the selections,
particularly the absence of david law (shown), a two-
time scottish amateur champ and member of walker
cup host site royal aberdeen. as byrne, law’s coun-
tryman, recent arizona state grad and scotland’s best
amateur, said in a tweet: “we have a very strong team,
but it would be stronger with david law.” law—who
would have been a better and more deserving choice
than dunbar, hodgson or pugh—is the latest british
amateur to suffer outrageously from a six-man selec-
tion system (a chairman, the non-playing captain and
one representative each from scotland, england, ire-
land and wales) that relies heavily on parochialism, not
to mention a hefty bias toward english players (england
being the biggest of the four “home” countries). in fact,
it can be argued that gb&i has never once been repre-
sented by its strongest side, such are the nationalistic
tendencies of those charged with picking the 10 best
players. this year will be no different. —John Huggan
the gb&i walker
cup team 09
daVid cannon/getty images
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