Tiger Woods’ only career amateur blemish came 30 years ago. What happened at the 1995 Walker Cup?

When he was 10, Tiger Woods famously read a story in his father’s copy of Golf Digest detailing Jack Nicklaus’ many golf milestones and achievements. As the legend goes, it was then and there he decided to emulate or eclipse each and every one in his quest to become the greatest golfer in history.

Roughly a decade later, as Woods approached the start of his sophomore year of college at Stanford, his pursuit was in full flight, having already claimed two U.S. Amateur titles (just like Nicklaus) before going on to make it three in a row in 1996 (something The Golden Bear never did … or any other player for that matter). With a professional career beckoning, however, and his amateur days numbered, Woods knew one trophy he still needed to get his hands on to keep up with Nicklaus was the Walker Cup, and that his only opportunity, in all likelihood, would be the 35th contest staged at Royal Porthcawl in Wales in September 1995.

Like the Ryder Cup until Tony Jacklin and Seve Ballesteros turned up and decided to make a fight out of it in the 1980s for Europe, the Walker Cup had become a predictable one-sided competition; it was even being called the “Walkover Cup,” such was America’s hegemony. In the 34 previous editions of the match between the U.S. and Great Britain & Ireland, America had won 30, with one tie, while GB&I hadn’t won since an unlikely victory at Atlanta’s Peachtree Golf Club in 1989.

Despite its home-course advantage, the 1995 GB&I team was still the overwhelming underdogs, the shadow of what had taken place two years earlier at Interlachen Country Club in Edina, Minn., still looming. That year, the U.S. featured a glut of future PGA Tour winners including Justin Leonard, Brian Gay and Tim Herron, and doled out the kind of ugly mauling that might well have signalled the end of the event, racing to a 19-5 victory.
Come 1995, the U.S. had lost the services of veterans Jay Sigel, who played in nine Walker Cups, winning eight, and Allen Doyle, the acclaimed amateur who, at 46, had finally turned professional to become the oldest rookie in PGA Tour history. Yet in future tour winners Chris Riley and Notah Begay III, the visitors appeared to have more than able replacements, even if nobody was talking about them.

And then there was Woods, 19, who arrived in Wales after a successful freshman year with the Cardinal where he won three college events and was named a first-team All-American and Pac-10 Player of the Year. Two weeks earlier, meanwhile, he had successfully defended his U.S. Amateur title, defeating Buddy Marucci at the Newport (R.I.) Country Club and matching Nicklaus’ tally of victories in the event in the process.
Jody Fanagan, a member of the GB&I team who was 30 at the time and working as an undertaker as part of his family business in Dublin, remembers Woods’ reputation preceding him. “He was their No. 1 player by far and he was the guy getting all the media attention,” he recalls. “But he looked the business, he really did.”

For players like Fanagan, watching Woods practice and play, even if it was from underneath an umbrella as the weather turned nasty, was an eye-opening experience. “He hit it higher, he hit it longer, more carry,” Fanagan says. “And that sound off the clubface … I’ve never heard anything like it. It was so impressive.”

Clive Brown, the GB&I captain that week, agrees. “I was in awe of him then, and I have been ever since,” Brown says. “It wasn’t just his ball-striking, it was his very presence. He just an aura about him.”

But Woods almost didn’t make it to the first tee.

Three days before the competition began, an official dinner had been arranged for the teams at the Caprice restaurant in nearby Penarth. Owned by local restaurateur Eddie Rabaiotti, it was the closest the area had to a celebrity haunt, and Rabaiotti had decked it out in national flags, taking care not to cover the photographs of some of his more illustrious guests like Prince Charles and Pope John Paul II.
Straying from his usual diet of burgers and fries, Woods, who was wedged between Fanagan and Padraig Harrington (the GB&I player from that team who went on to have the most impressive pro career) at the dinner table, opted for seafood but seemed ill at ease throughout the evening. “I thought it was a really nice arrangement, but when I looked over I’m not sure if Tiger was very excited to be there,” says Brown, who was also responsible for the seating plan.

Woods didn’t sleep that night, spending the small hours suffering with crippling stomach pains and making several visits to the bathroom. Despite seeing a doctor, Woods missed practice on the Thursday and then called it a day after just three holes of his practice round on Friday.

Tiger Woods (back row, first on left) is pictured with his American Walker Cup teammates ahead of the 1995 competition at Royal Porthcawl. The rest of the team: front row, left to right: Jerry Courville Jr., Buddy Marucci, Downing Gray (captain), Chris Riley; back row: Woods, Kris Cox, Trip Kuehne, Notah Begay III, Alan Bratton, John Harris.

Woods soldiered on during the two-day competition, declaring himself fit enough to play. When he was announced on the first tee on Saturday morning for his foursome match with fellow American John Harris against the Scottish duo Gordon Sherry and Stephen Gallacher, he didn’t get any sympathy. “I was introduced and just got a huge ovation of boos,” Woods recalled a number of years later. “I’m like ‘Oh, OK, welcome to the Walker Cup.’”

The golf course and conditions were equally inhospitable. Diseased, lumpy greens, coupled with hard rain and strong gusts blowing in from the Bristol Channel, made club and shot selection difficult. It was especially for Woods, whose driver was wayward in the extreme, as his teammate Trip Kuehne explains.

“He was the best putter, best chipper, best iron player, best clutch player, best mental game,” Kuehne says. “My question was always if he ever really figured out how to become one of the best drivers in the golf world, nobody was going to be able to beat him.

“It was just a question of whether it was going to cost the team.”

While Harris and Woods would prevail in their morning match, things weren’t as positive for Tiger in his tortoise and the hare affair against mid-amateur Gary Wolstenholme (a six-time Walker Cup participant) in the Saturday afternoon’s singles. While Woods was routinely 70 yards or more longer off the tee than his opponent, his inability to cope with the conditions—Woods was out of bounds on three occasions—coupled with Wolstenholme’s slow-and-steady style saw them reach the final hole all square, at which point Woods clubbed his 7-iron approach into the rocks on the beach behind the 18th green and out of bounds, gifting Wolstenholme the win.
And while Woods gained his revenge the following day, defeating Wolstenholme, 4 and 3, in the Sunday singles, the overall match result, a rare 14-10 win for GB&I, was already assured. “There was no doubting Tiger was going to be absolutely a superstar,” Wolstenholme says, “but I guess I’ll always be remembered for beating him, even if people conveniently forget that he beat me on the second day.”

Woods left Wales with a record of 2-2 and the realization that he would never be on a victorious Walker Cup squad. It was a rare public failure but one that would soon be forgotten.

The contrast in expressions between Woods and Wolstenholme tells the tale of their Saturday singles match.

Within 10 months, though, he would leave Stanford and the amateur ranks behind, with $60 million in the bank courtesy of contracts with Nike and Titleist. Within 18 months, at just 21, he would be wearing a green jacket, winning the Masters by 12 strokes and breaking more than 20 tournament records in the process.

Despite everything he achieved in the amateur game, though, there was still one thing missing from his trophy cabinet.

“Jack won the Walker Cup,” Wolstenholme notes.

“Tiger didn’t.”