Presidential Treatment

Victorious USA Walker Cup Squad Invited To White House

January 27, 2006

By Ken Klavon, USGA

Far Hills, N.J. - Jeff Hall and Bob Lewis sat in a Washington, D.C., hotel room last Monday afternoon, watching the television screen in wonderment. President George Bush was delivering a speech to a contingency in Manhattan, Kan., some 1,200 miles away.

"I said, 'Bob, I don't see how this is going to happen,' " said Hall, the USGA's Director of Rules/Competitions and Standards to the 61-year-old two-time USA Walker Cup captain.

Added Lewis: "We were laughing. 'There's no way he's getting back,' we thought. But even some of the kids were watching in their rooms. We were all concerned because we did not want to miss the opportunity."

One could understand their reservations. After all, receiving an invite to the White House happens more infrequently than a Haley's Comet sighting.

USA players celebrate their first Walker Cup victory since the 1997 Match after posting a narrow 12½-11½ win over Great Britain and Ireland this past August at Chicago Golf Club. (USGA photo archives)

A day after the squad's dramatic 12½ to 11½ victory over the Great Britain and Ireland squad at the eminent Chicago Golf Club last July, a White House aide contacted Hall, who acts as the team's manager. With the Bush family ties to the Walker Cup (the cup is named after Bush's great grandfather, former USGA President George Herbert Walker), the aide wanted to know if the team could come to Washington for a meeting with the commander-in-chief. But scheduling conflicts kept postponing the assembly. Now it appeared as though another delay would be imminent.

Not so fast. When you're the U.S. President, certain perks apply, like having a government-issued Boeing 747 (Air Force One). Four hours later everyone watched in astonishment as Bush stepped out of the Marine One helicopter and onto the South Lawn.

USGA incoming President Walter Driver (he officially takes office on Feb. 4), outgoing president Fred Ridley, Hall, Lewis and players Matt Every, Brian Harman, Billy Hurley, Anthony Kim, Michael Putnam, Kyle Reifers and Lee Williams entered the Oval Office in single file. (Three players from the team, John Holmes, Nicholas Thompson and Jeff Overton had prior PGA Tour commitments and did not attend). Bush greeted each one individually.

Lewis had prepared to introduce the team but Bush took care of that, which impressed Lewis, a three-time runner-up in USGA championships (1980 U.S. Amateur, 1981 and '84 U.S. Mid-Amateur) and a four-time Walker Cup participant. The normally loquacious Harman called Bush "just a normal dude, just another guy."

Bush spoke about golf and the importance it had in his family's life. He engaged Ridley, telling the 1975 U.S. Amateur champion with merriment that Walker was "his great granddad." He regaled in the fact that his grandfather, former USGA President Prescott Bush (1935), taught him how to play.

The two sides exchanged mementos. Hurley, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, presented the President, to his delight, with a hat that had a large W, for Walker, on the front. The White House guests received golf balls stamped with the presidential seal.

The event wasn't completely formal. After the introductions, Bush gave everyone a history lesson on the Oval Office, told stories about various pictures on the wall and about other minutiae, such as the desk he had ordered to be brought in upon his inauguration in 2000. It traces back to the days of Abraham Lincoln, he said. Yet the gravity of the moment suddenly turned farcical when Bush rotated to catch Kim leaning on the desk.

"That was a classic," said Lewis, laughing. "The President turned and saw him and said something like, 'It's OK to lean on that desk.'"

Bush even poked fun at himself. When addressing Hurley, who currently serves as an economic instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy, Bush put him on the spot.

"He asked me if I was at his speech that he gave in November at the Naval Academy, which I was," said Hurley in an e-mail response. "He then he asked me if I was asleep and I said no, and he said, 'Thank you.'  You see, all the midshipmen (students) at the Academy were required to get to the auditorium starting at 6:30 a.m. for a 9:45 speech, so most of them were lounging around and sleeping prior to him arriving."

Toward the end of the visit Bush singled out Harman, a University of Georgia freshman and 2003 U.S. Junior champion, for the Bulldogs' football program and the school's top-ranked and defending NCAA Division I champion men's golf team. Maybe we'll see you back here, Harman said Bush told him. To which Every, a senior at the Southeastern Conference rival University of Florida, retorted good-humoredly that all the other golf teams were playing for second but that he shouldn't necessarily count out the third-ranked Gators. Every punctuated the ribbing by asking Bush who made his suits, bringing another laugh.

Through it all, the purpose of the visit wasn't lost on anyone. Lewis, who has been affiliated with Walker Cups as player and captain and who has played in seven Masters, finishing as low amateur in 1987, has a fair share of treasured golf memories. In many ways, to be recognized by the President, was a validation of the team's historic accomplishment. The USA victory was the first by the Americans in the biennial competition since 1997.

"Absolutely," said Lewis. "The Walker Cup, as I've told many people, has been a huge part of my life. Nothing means as much to me as that in my life."

Harman said it's been his favorite moment thus far in his abbreviated career. Hurley couldn't have agreed more.

"The Walker Cup was the highlight of most of our golf careers to date, and I think that meeting the President will fix it that way for a long, long time," Hurley said. "Not many people have spent 15 minutes in the Oval Office with the President.

"I think that it really hammers home the idea that we were playing for our country.  There's no more important man in the country, and of course the military, than the President. And for him to have us to his house and spend some time with us says a lot about the national importance of the Walker Cup, and more importantly, winning the Walker Cup."

Maybe the deferential Hall, who made it apparent that all the credit should rest with the team, put it best.

"It was about thanking and honoring an American team that carried the American flag into an international competition," he said. "It was the office of the Presidency saying, 'Thank you.' "