Hooray for Hollywood? “If you come to Los Angeles, the one thing everyone wants to do is get their picture at the Hollywood sign, so we did that on Monday,” said Catriona Matthew of the touristy stuff her GB&I team experienced ahead of this weekend’s Curtis Cup at Bel-Air Country Club.
“At the end of the day, though, we’re here to focus on the golf.”
Given that GB&I have won just once on American soil in the history of the transatlantic tussle, an away win on Sunday night would probably be beyond the imaginations of even the most creative scriptwriters in La La Land.
You never know in this game, though. Team USA may boast a side featuring three of the world’s top-eight ranked amateurs and six of the leading 18 but Matthew’s GB&I were underdogs at Sunningdale two years ago and hurled the rankings out of the window with a famous, one-point win.
Winning in America, though, is a totally different kettle of fish but Matthew’s canny stewardship has her troops well equipped for the battle ahead.
“We’re up for the challenge,” said the Scot, who is aiming to replicate the home and away victories she enjoyed as the European captain in the Solheim Cup.
“On paper, the Americans are obviously hot favourites. But that puts a bit of pressure on them. They're expected to win. They'll be wanting to win, get their revenge for Sunningdale. But we are playing well and we're confident.”
The Curtis Cup, of course, has always been a lop-sided affair. GB&I have won just nine times since its inception back in 1932.
Two years earlier, in 1930, an unofficial yet historic first meeting between two women teams from either side of the pond took place at Sunningdale.
The Glasgow Herald, as this fine publication was called at the time, gave it a good showing but it wasn’t the lead item in the golf round-up. That was reserved for Captain G A Moxon of the Royal Artillery winning the British Army Championship at Prestwick.
At the Sunningdale showdown, meanwhile, there was an army of a different kind. “An army of cinematographers greeted the players,” stated The Herald’s report of proceedings. “It looked more like a scene in filmland, and they would not be satisfied until the players had posed in groups and they had made a ‘talkie’.”
A GB&I win this weekend may see the iconic Hollywood landmark on Mount Lee replaced by a sign spelling out the name of Catriona Matthew.
Bel-Air should provide a terrific matchplay stage, with its inward half once being described as “the nine of a thousand thrills” by a golf writer of yore.
“It’s definitely a second shot golf course,” noted Matthew. “The greens are just getting firmer every day and quicker every day, so getting in the right position to be able to attack with your approach will be key.”
The approach, meanwhile, of the legendary movie producer, Howard Hughes, will take some beating. Back in the mid-1930s, he landed his plane on one of the fairways to catch up on a golfing date with Katharine Hepburn.
Away from green grass, the Bel-Air clubhouse hosted the reception for Elizabeth Taylor’s first wedding in 1950.
Funnily enough, the total number of points available over three days of Curtis Cup action is about the same as the number of marriages the bold Liz racked up. Or something like that.
It’s 40 years now since GB&I recorded that one and only victory on American turf in 1986.
The 13-5 win at Prairie Dunes provided a glorious Curtis Cup swansong for the decorated, celebrated Scot, Belle Robertson, as she finally tasted victory after eight previous defeats in the event as a player and captain.
Robertson was a sprightly 50 in 1986. The oldest player in the GB&I side at Bel-Air this weekend is 23. It’s a different ball game these days.
Despite her advancing years, Robertson was still a tremendous competitor. In 1986, she’d won the Helen Holm Scottish Women’s Open and the Scottish Women’s Amateur Championship.
It wasn’t good enough for some folk, mind you. “Enid Wilson, a champion golfer in her day and a golf writer at the time, said, ‘with all the old grannies on the team, they won’t have a chance’,” recalled Robertson of this withering assessment ahead of a tussle in the searing heat of Kansas.
Robertson and her GB&I team-mates would prove the doubters wrong in emphatic fashion.
Here in 2026, another great Scot, and a new generation of players, will be aiming to produce their own piece of American history.
In the heart of Hollywood, it’s lights, camera, action for the 44th Curtis Cup.
