At this year’s Bridges Cup, the pressure comes with 1 unanswered question
You can call it a friendly rivalry between Jeff Fujimoto and Simon Holt, the two captains at next month’s Bridges Cup. They agree on most things, like the fact they are thrilled the premier mid-amateur international team match-play competition is heading to a venue as prestigious as Trump Turnberry. And that the Bridges Cup, about to get underway for the fourth time, is instrumental in promoting mid-amateur golf and showcasing the players who balance work and family while still competing at a high level.
The only thing Fujimoto and Holt can’t agree on? Which team should be favored in the upcoming Bridges Cup.
“The level of competition every year seems to get stronger and stronger,” said Fujimoto, the U.S. captain. “It’s exciting — I think we are going to go in and upset them.”
“I’d probably disagree that they are underdogs,” added Holt, the International team captain. “History dictates the U.S. has won three times, but it’s going to be great. The Americans come in incredibly strong — they always do — and we just can’t wait to get there and go toe-to-toe again.”
This year’s Bridges Cup, set for Oct. 5-7 at Trump Turnberry in South Ayrshire, Scotland, might be the most anticipated yet.
The Americans won by just a point in the inaugural Bridges Cup in 2022 and then cruised to a victory in 2023. In 2024, the latest edition, it came down to the final match, with the U.S. winning 17-15 at Haesley Nine Bridges in South Korea.
The Americans are 3-0 in the event, but with that winning streak comes pressure. Plus, it’s a road game.
“We should have, in theory, an advantage being on links golf,” Holt said. “Especially the time of year we’re going to play, the weather could really lean into it.”
There’s also the pressure that comes with being the final team event on the global golf calendar in 2026. Just last month, Great Britain and Ireland pulled off a stunning come-from-behind victory to beat the U.S. and win the Walker Cup. Europe just beat the U.S. in the Solheim Cup last week. And the Ryder Cup? Well, you remember Bethpage Black last fall. Europe has that trophy too.
Maybe things are aligning for Holt’s International team after all.
“[The last Bridges Cup] was so exciting,” Holt said. “It came down to the final hole, and unfortunately it didn’t go our way. But this year we’re going to Turnberry, my home turf in Scotland, a world top-20 golf course at Trump Turnberry, and we couldn’t be more excited about this year’s event.”
Speaking of Trump Turnberry, the five-star luxury golf resort on the Firth of Clyde will host this year’s event, with the matches being played on the iconic Ailsa Course as well as King Robert the Bruce. The Ailsa Course ranks 18th on GOLF’s Top 100 Courses in the World ranking, while Martin Ebert built the King Robert the Bruce course in 2017 (he also renovated the Ailsa in 2025).
The Ailsa Course has hosted four Open Championships — 1977, 1986, 1994 and 2009 — and has been the site of some of golf’s most famous moments, including the 1977 “Duel in the Sun” between Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus. Watson was again a central figure there in 2009, when he was 59 years old and making a run at becoming the oldest major champion in golf history. (Watson held a one-shot lead on the 18th on Sunday but bogeyed the final hole and later lost to Stewart Cink in a playoff.)
Trump Turnberry has hosted other marquee events — like a Women’s British Open and several Senior Open Championships — and has also been a venue for premier amateur tournaments, a detail that’s important to Bridges Cup organizers and the history they want to honor. Trump Turnberry hosted the 1963 Walker Cup as well as the British Amateur Championship in 1961, 1983, 1996 and 2008. The British Am and U.S. Amateur are considered the two most prestigious individual amateur events in the world.
And now 24 decorated mid-amateurs will tee it up there too.
Australia’s Lukas Michel, the 2019 U.S. Mid-Amateur champ who played in the Masters and U.S. Open, is back for his second appearance after he was a perfect 5-0 at the last Bridges Cup. There’s Caolan Rafferty, who represented Great Britain and Ireland at the 2019 Walker Cup and became the first golfer to win all four Irish provincial championships. And don’t forget Colm Campbell, who is a two-time Irish Amateur Open champion.
As for the Americans, Drew Kittleson, a 2008 U.S. Amateur runner-up and Masters and U.S. Open participant, is back again. And making his debut is John Peterson, the 2011 NCAA individual champion who made 93 PGA Tour starts before later regaining his amateur status.
There’s also that wrinkle that these elite mid-amateurs have jobs and families. This year’s field alone has salesmen, GMs, entrepreneurs and even a golf course architect and a director of a fishing company. Players from both sides were selected to compete because of their low handicaps, but also for their previous accomplishments in the game, international experience, match-play credentials and more.
The competition itself is simple: 12 U.S. players face 12 International players in three days of competitive matches (four-ball, foursomes and singles) at a world-class golf club.
For now, the Bridges Cup is a friendly competition where it’s anyone’s guess which team is the favorite and who is the underdog. But come Oct. 5 at Trump Turnberry, when the first session gets underway, the chill creeps in and the breeze picks up, the stakes will be raised. That’s just how things work in these premier team events — and elite competitors thrive on it.
“Turnberry has not really been showcased for quite a long time,” Holt said. “So to take these top-level mid-am golfers there, to really test them out on one of the world’s great golf courses, I think it’s fair to say this is the best golf course we’ve ever taken the event to.”
In the third iteration of the Bridges Cup, the team of elite mid-amateurs from the United States barely held on in the final session to best the Internationals, 17-15, at Haesley Nine Bridges in South Korea. The victory represents the third straight in this competition for the Americans.
The Bridges Cup is a partnership between South Korean conglomerate CJ Group and 8AM Golf that features two teams in a Ryder Cup-style competition over three days. The first iteration was held at CJ-owned Nine Bridges (No. 87 in GOLF’s world ranking), on Jeju Island in 2022. The next year, the competition moved to Les Bordes (No. 83) in France.
Each team is hand-selected by their captains and comprised of high-level amateur golfers with résumés that include USGA championships and major tournament experience. All of that talent was on display at Haesley.
The 12-man American team came out firing in the opening session Monday, posting a 5-1 lead in the four-ball matches. But the Internationals clawed back in the three-day competition to get within two points to begin Wednesday’s singles session, and, with 12 points up for grabs, it was truly anyone’s tournament. Early on, it seemed that the International squad was riding that momentum for a potential comeback.
“After nine holes, it really looked as though the Internationals could have had a chance to squeak it,” said Simon Holmes, a golf professional and Bridges Cup commentator.
Matthew McClean, Hugh Foley and Lukas Michel won tightly contested morning matches, but the U.S.’s Drew Kittleson finally put red on the board with a 2-and-1 win over Jacob Austin.
The pieces then started falling into place for the U.S. They took five of the last eight matches as Scott Anderson, Andrew Medley and Drew Stoltz all won 5 and 4.
“We never thought it was ever lost,” said International captain Simon Holt. “We rallied like mad, but, in the end, we simply ran out of holes.” Added Holmes, “The way they fought back, the intensity of the competition, the amount of stress that was created for the players and certainly the captains, just goes to show that the Bridges Cup, the combination of 8AM and CJ and this concept of mid-am team golf, is an absolute winner.”
For the third year in a row, the United States defeated the Internationals at the Bridges Cup The Club at Haesley Nine Bridges in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.
Session one of Four-Ball was the difference in the Cup, as the United States jumped out to an early 5-1 lead and held off the Internationals for the rest of the week, winning 17-15 and getting out of Sunday Singles with a 6 to 6 tie.
The International team won the second session, which was foursomes, 3-1, to make the score 6-4 after day one in favor of the United States. The rest of the tournament was a tie, with the United States holding onto that two-point through the last two days.
The Internationals made a late push in the Sunday Singles, earning four of the last five points to make it close, but Joe Deraney won the final match to give the United States the outright win at 17-15. If the final were 16-16, the United States would have retained the cup since the International needed 16.5 to win it for the first time.
Deraney won the 2023 Canadian Mid-Amateur, the 2023 Devils Elbow Invitational, and the 2024 Lupton Memorial.
The Internationals were led by top mid-amateurs Matthew McClean and Hugh Foley. McClean is currently ranked No. 1 in the AmateurGolf.com Mid-Amateur Rankings. Foley is ranked No. 6.
The Bridges Cup is three years old, and the USA won 19-11 in 2023 and 14-12 in 2022.
The Bridges Cup is the premier mid-amateur golf match, uniting elite players from around the world in a Ryder Cup-style competition held annually at world-class golf courses. It provides a platform for players to compete at the highest level of mid-amateur golf while strengthening bonds between global golfing communities.
The Bridges Cup is the premier mid-amateur golf matches, uniting elite players from around the world in a Ryder Cup - style competition held annually at world-class golf courses. The Bridges Cup provides a platform for players to compete at the highest level of mid-amateur golf, while strengthening bonds between global golfing communities.
