GB&I retain Jacques Leglise Trophy

• The scores finished level at Royal Dornoch
• Scots Sandy Scott and Calum Fyfe were part of the GB&I team
• GB&I captain Peter McEvoy says his side ‘should have won’

Great Britain and Ireland had to come from behind against the Continent of Europe to successfully retain the Jacques Leglise Trophy at Royal Dornoch.

Captained by Peter McEvoy, the Great Britain and Ireland side were forced to fight until the very last hole of the very last match to level the overall score at 12½ – 12½, the first time the annual match between the two sides has been tied since 1978.

“We’ve retained the trophy but we wanted to win,” said McEvoy. “We should have won. We played the 18^th five times today and we lost the 18^th five times. I think we should have won the match comfortably.

“I thought the lads showed tremendous spirit and great golf all afternoon, apart from not quite finishing the job off on the 18^th.

“I’m proud of the team, it was a great effort but I think we will still go away feeling the job wasn’t quite done. I know we retained the trophy but we wanted to win the match.”

“It was very tight, it could have gone either way and you have to congratulate the GB&I team” – Continent of Europe captain Miguel Franco de Sousa

Local boy Sandy Scott had the chance to win the contest outright for GB&I having rallied from two down with four to play to get back to all-square playing the 18^th. A halved match would have been good enough, but Norway’s Viktor Hovland played the hole expertly in par, while Scott, who won the Scottish Boys Open Stroke Play Championship earlier this summer, missed the green and was unable to get up and down for par and lost by one hole.

Scott had earlier teamed up with fellow Scotland boys international Calum Fyfe to rescue a half point in the morning foursomes, before Fyfe won his singles match 3&2.

Continent of Europe, captained by Miguel Franco de Sousa, enjoyed a purple patch at the top of the order in the closing singles ties as his players trailed going down the 18^th in all of the first three ties but all gained halves.

“It was very tight, it could have gone either way and you have to congratulate the GB&I team, they played really good golf in the afternoon, a very good fight back,” said Miguel Franco de Sousa. “They should be proud of themselves and I am very proud of my team. It’s a draw but we are not taking the trophy home.

“The 18^th was a good hole for us, especially in the singles because we managed to get three halved matches when we were down in them all – that kept momentum going and there was still hope of winning.”