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US LIFT THE 2002 INAUGURAL GALLACHER TROPHY
Scott Brubaker knows a thing or two about winning, and his expertise in this field helped the United States to lift the inaugural Gallacher Trophy, a corporate golf tournament modelled on the Ryder Cup, with a 12-6 victory over Europe at Loch Lomond on the last Friday in April 2002.
Brubaker, commercial director of the Arizona Diamond Backs baseball team which won last year's World Series, controls a budget conservatively estimated in excess of $1 billion. He also has the physique of an NFL player, and the burly five-handicapper used it to propel his ball prodigious distances on the Bonnie banks of Scotland's most famous pond.
In the morning foursomes, Brubaker teamed up with another multi-millionaire, Tim Harrington, president and CEO of online merchandisers Fogdog Sports, to beat Jon Rishton, chief financial officer of BA, and Phones International Group's chief executive Peter Jones 5&4.
Maybe Brubaker celebrated a little too much at lunchtime because Jones had his revenge in the afternoon singles match between the pair and Harrington also crashed out in his game with Avis fleet and operations vice-president Robin Shaw, but by then Europe were condemned to defeat.
Jones was two down to Brubacker after eight holes but was given a swing tip by former Ryder Cup skipper Bernard Gallacher, in whose honour the event was named, and claimed the next seven holes to close out the match 5&3 and produce perhaps Europe's outstanding performance on the day. Meanwhile, Shaw won 6&5 as Harrington's exhausting week of practice in Scotland finally caught up with him.
Three members of the US side had 100-per-cent records on the day - Phil Winters, president of Armorgear, Bill Provine, vice-president of investor relations for Rowan Companies, and James Donley, director of Phoenix-based Donley Services. Winters and Paul Taylor, a senior executive of Dallas oil firm Anadarko Petroleum, beat Wentworth members Conor Semple and Tony Reid 2&1, and Winters followed up later on with a 5&3 success in his singles against Semple. Provine and Donley edged through in a closely-fought foursomes 3&2 against former Energis UK managing director Bob Taylor and BMW's head of corporate sales Bernard Bradley, but along the way they needed a ruling from former Ryder Cup referee, Iain Burns, at a crucial moment.
In the singles, Provine swept aside Bradley 7&5 - the point which actually clinched the trophy for the visitors - while Donley took the last three holes against Taylor, who was suffering with a leg injury at the time, to turn a two-hole deficit into a one-up victory. The best European performances came from Shaw, Geoff Irvine, managing director of building company Irvine-Whitlock, and Mike Coyne, a director of Ashgarth Holdings, who each claimed one and a half points. Irvine and senior American Express executive John Friend edged past BA global sales head Dale Moss and AOL Time Warner executive Chris Wightman 2&1 when Irvine rolled home a six-foot birdie putt on the 17th green.
Then Irvine achieved a creditable half with Arizona businessman Duane Sparks. Irvine led for most of the match only to find himself on the receiving end of a Sparks backlash before recovering his composure to take the 18th and finish with honours even. It was Sparks' second half of the day, having earlier teamed up with Bob Bowen, the retired president of NCS Pearson Software & Services, in a foursomes against Stephen Vincent, finance director of Phones International, and senior Avis director Robin Vincent (no relation). Stephen Vincent had a shortish putt on the home green for victory but was forced to watch in anguish as his ball shaved the hole and stayed above the cup. Two-handicap Ed Blechschmidt, the CEO of New York-based Gentiva Health Services and the third-ranked CEO in the United States according to Golf Digest magazine, also had to be content with only two halves. Paired with leading Arizona stockbroker Art Buck, Blechschmidt was held by the European pairing of Coyne and Neil Thomas, both members of Wentworth, in the foursomes. But he was expected to be America's banker in the singles series, especially as his game with Reid, CEO of BFS Investments, was a scratch contest and the handicap difference between the players was four shots. However, Reid played superbly and earned a deserved share of the spoils.
Buck, a close associate of Loch Lomond's owner Lyle Anderson, had almost as tight a battle against Thomas, who holds three passports, before taking the last to win one-up.
Owing to the pressures of work, Rishton stepped down for the singles and was replaced by Roland Nilsson, the only Swedish player in the event and CEO of Hilton in Scandinavia. But Nilsson, who had not played at all during the preceding winter, found his game was too rusty and went down 5&4 to Bowen.
Wightman turned the tables on Friend with a 2&1 win which was sealed when he knocked his ball 10 feet from the pin at the 17th and then watched Friend succumb to pressure and fail to hit his tee shot further than 10 yards.
US vice-captain Moss also bounced back from his earlier defeat to beat Stephen Vincent 4&2. Moss was five up at the 8th, but even a slight wobble during which he lost the 9th, 10th and 11th failed to unsettle him.
Europe's final point came from Coyne, who played superbly to beat Taylor by two holes.
Gallacher was in attendance all day in his capacity as non-playing European captain along with his American counterpart, Craig 'Walrus' Stadler, and was delighted that the contest raised more than $30,000 from the players' entrance fees for the United Nations' charity UNICEF.
After the day's play, an auction raised a further $27,500 for UNICEF. Lots included Club World Transatlantic tickets, a week's holiday in Atlanta plus Avis car hire, a custom-fit of Callaway clubs, and a round of golf with Gallacher at Wentworth where he was the professional for more than two decades.
Among the corporate partners involved in staging the event - it was postponed from its original date last autumn out of respect for the victims of the September 11 atrocity - were BA, CNN, Avis, Polo Golf Ralph Lauren and yourownballs.com.
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