Stuart Wilson's Walker Cup debt to Lothians star Simon Mackenzie

Stuart Wilson reckons he’d probably have been watching this weekend’s Walker Cup in St Andrews on TV as opposed to captaining Great Britain & Ireland if he’d not been encouraged to play more himself by a former Lothians star.

GB&I captain Stuart Wilson, right, chats to England's John Gough dueing a practice round for the 49th Walker Cup at St Andrews. Picture: Oisin Keniry/R&A/R&A via Getty Images.

The Forfar man is an appropriate home skipper for the 49th edition on the Old Course, where he beat Italian Francesco Molinari in the quarter-finals on his way to winning the Amateur Championship 20 years ago.

But, as he prepared to lead his side into battle against the Americans, Wilson also revealed that West Linton’s Simon Mackenzie, the 1995 Scottish Amateur champion, had helped play a part in his journey on the road to this dream opportunity

“It’s a place that is very special to me for a number of reasons between winning the Amateur and my whole amateur career to this point kicking off from a game round here with Simon, who told me to go out and play more events,” said Wilson.

“Which I did and, if it hadn’t been for that game with Simon, I would probably still have been at Forfar and watching this weekend’s event on the TV.”

This is Wilson’s second crack as captain, having already been at the helm when GB&I made their opponents sweat before the US ran out 14-12 winners at Seminole in Florida two years ago.

With world No 1 Gordon Sargent spearheading a star-studded side, the Americans are strong favourites as they bid to make it four straight successes in the biennial bout.

But Wilson and his team, which includes Blairgowrie 16-year-old Connor Graham and Calum Scott, a 19-year-old from Nairn, feel comfortable being underdogs and the home side’s preparation couldn’t have gone any better.

“The week has been great,” said Wilson. “Being at St Andrews and The R&A being the host club, they’ve done an exceptional job so far and The R&A supporting the team in a separate capacity have done as much as they can to give us the best possible chance this week.

“We’ve had performance support from David Dunne and also have a physio on site, allowing the guys to do their warm ups and cool downs and, generally, helping them get in the right place come Saturday.

“Obviously Seminole was a great event, albeit slightly different given that it was under Covid circumstances and we didn’t have crowds there. It will be totally different in that respect here at St Andrews.

“We always go into this event as the underdogs and second favourites in a two-horse race, but, once they apply themselves, our guys are more than capable of keeping up with the US team.”

Alex Maguire, one of four Irish players in the home ranks, won the St Andrews Links Trophy earlier in the year and, a bit like some of the Ryder Cups on this side of the Atlantic over the past 20 years, Wilson is hoping superior knowledge of the Old Course can be a big factor.

“A lot of the guys have good memories of having great results in the Links Trophy and playing around St Andrews,” he said. “What we need to be aware of is just not getting complacent as it’s almost a little bit too familiar in some respects.

“It’s as much as a home venue as you are going to get for these guys. We all know the Old Course can change on a day-to-day basis and even morning to afternoon it can throw up a new challenge.

“We will always be the underdogs because the US have won a lot more than us over the history of the event. But, in more recent times, home advantage has come strongly into play.

“We’ll be looking at these things and also the experience from Seminiole, where at one point on the Sunday we had enough points on the board before a few matches late on just didn’t go our way. That was a very tight game and I am probably expecting the same here.”