Walker Cup Tickets Now On Sale

This is a special year for NY metro golf fans. You can attend the US Open at Merion--if you were lucky enough to order tickets a year ago. And you will be able to see the US Women's Open at Sebonack this summer. But the real treat is one that doesn't come along very often (once every four years in this country, to be exact--and certainly not always within an easy drive). It's the Walker Cup Match, the amateur version of the Ryder Cup. This year, it's being held at the National Golf Links of America in Southampton. It's worth the price of admission, so to speak, just to get to walk this special--and very exclusive--golf course.

The Walker Cup is scheduled for September 6 - 8 and tickets are on sale at www.2013walkercup.com. This year's match returns to the site of the original, which was played in 1922 on the Charles Blair Macdonald design on eastern Long Island.

The match is a biennial team competition between teams of ten male amateur golfers from the US and Great Britain and Ireland. It's contested through 18 singles matches and eight foursomes (alternate-shot) matches played over two days.

The schedule calls for practice rounds and the opening ceremony on September 6, them four foursomes matches Saturday morning followed by eight singles that day. It concludes on Sunday, September 8, with four foursomes and ten singles, with closing ceremonies scheduled for 5:30 PM.

You'll be able to see two hours of taped coverage each day on the Golf Channel, but there's not way to fully appreciate the course and the level of excitement it will bring to the match play format on the small screen. Tickets range from $25 to $250 and juniors aged 17 and under will be admitted free with a ticket-holding adult.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf