Coughlan raves about Walker Cup stars Power and Murphy
Richie Coughlan at Carton House for the 2018 World Amateur Team Championships.
Former PGA Tour star Richie Coughlan is tipping Walker Cup standouts Mark Power and John Murphy to go right to the top of the game.
The Offaly man, who is now coaching at the University of Texas and looking after former world amateur No 1’s in US Walker Cup stars Pierceson Coody and Cole Hammer, was “blown away” by the performances of Kilkenny man Power (20) and Kinsale star Murphy (22) in last weekend’s 14-12 defeat at Seminole.
“John Murphy and Mark Power should be proud of themselves they just played fantastic golf,” said Coughlan (47). “I was proud to be an Irishman just watching them. Their skill level blew my mind actually.
“John is turning pro this summer and he will do just fine. He has what it takes. Some people get the chance and they get in early and they thrive and some people players might take a little bit longer.
“And Mark Power is an absolute superstar. He’s amazing. He has exactly the temperament required which is no surprise because it’s in his genes with his parents Eddie and Eileen Rose.
“Power’s ability to shape the ball and his ability to flight the ball down when he needed to really impressed me. He has all the shots and so has Murphy.”
Coughlan, who played in the Walker Cup in 1997 when Great Britain and Ireland fell 18-6 at Quaker Ridge in New York, went on that year to become the first player to win his card on the PGA Tour and the European Tour in the same season.
The former Clemson star suffered a string of injuries that forced him off the Tour in 2003 but he is now enjoying success as a coach in Austin, where he is also an assistant coach to the University of Texas.
“The Walker Cup was a spectacle,” he said. “It was a fantastic match and great to see how extremely skilful these players are to be able to play the way they did. What a match it was. The Walker Cup never loses its feel.
“The shots the boys were hitting was unreal. They were pitching off runoffs that were as fast and firm as greens so they had to spin the ball off a very tight lie and that particular shot is a really high risk, high skill level shot. It has to be played to perfection and it was. It was just wonderful to watch their wedge games around those green complexes.
“They have wedges now they’re different to the ones in my day. You can take off the bounce and change the faces when you’re playing to greens that much slope and that much speed, stimping is 13 or 14 with a 20 mile an hour wind and those gradients, there was a real premium on getting it up and down to win holes. I was really impressed.”
Couglan will be back on this side of the Atlantic in July to help Hammer in The Open at Royal St George’s.
“He was World No 1 and won the Mark McCormack medal in 2020 so that got him into The Open last year. But with the event postponed due to Covid, it was pushed back to this year. So he has asked me if I will come over to caddie for him and I am giddy about the prospect.”
