Walker Cup: US-based Scot is Caledonian to the core - 'I feel I have earned it'

He even had a group of Americans cheering him on when making a brilliant run to the semi-finals of the US Amateur Championship at The Olympic Club in San Francisco and is a two-time Hawaii State Amateur champion.

Don’t be fooled into thinking, though, that Niall Shiels Donegan is more American than Scottish. He’s Caledonian to the core and, boy, is the 20-year-old proud to be flying the Saltire in one of golf’s great team events along with two of his compatriots, Cameron Adam and Connor Graham, on the California coast on 6-7 September.

“I wouldn’t change flying the flag for Scotland for anything.” Shiels Donegan told The Scotsman. “Whenever you get a call like this one to represent your country or nation, it is such an honour and makes you feel so much pride and, hopefully, I can represent the flag well at Cypress Point.”

Mum Maggie Shiels is a former BBC Silicon Valley correspondent who now works in communications for Google. Dad Lawrence Donegan was a musician with The Bluebells and Lloyd Cole and the Commotions before becoming a journalist, working as the golf correspondent for The Guardian for a spell.

Between them, they’ve helped shape a lovely young man, who, understandably, was gutted when he missed out on making the GB&I team for the St Andrews Trophy against Continent of Europe in Madrid at the end of July but bounced back to resuscitate his Walker Cup dream with that thrilling performance in the US Amateur.

“Yeah, I feel like with the Walker Cup, this entire summer I have been really focused on that as the goal and, coming into the US Am, it was a case of being at home and knowing you’d done so much hard and good work and then just going out and enjoy it and it was nice the way it ended up for me in terms of the Walker Cup,” he admitted.

Since first coming back to Scotland to play in the top junior events, Shiels Donegan has gone from strength to strength, as evidenced by the fact he served as captain of the GB&I Boys’ team for the 2022 Jacques Leglise Trophy, another event against Continent of Europe, at Blairgowrie. In another assignment on Scottish soil, he finished joint-fourth in this year’s St Andrews Links Trophy and now he’s earned what is reckoned to be the top accolade in the amateur game on both sides of the Atlantic.

‘I’ve worked harder than almost anyone I know’

“Yeah, it is always one of those things that you don’t realise how far you have come until you take a moment to dwell on it and I did that a little bit after I’d been selected,” admitted Shiels Donegan, who has just transferred to the University of North Carolina for his junior year after spending two years as a team-mate of Adam’s at Northwestern in Chicago. “It is really amazing. I’ve worked harder than almost anyone I know, so I feel I have earned it. But I can never fall into the trap of taking things for granted. I have to keep up the work ethic and see where that takes me.”

The odds are stacked against a GB&I side that also includes Luke Poulter, the 21-year-old son of seven-time Ryder Cup player Ian, as well as Dominic Clemons and Elliot Baker, the English winners of the Scottish Men’s Open over the last two years at Muirfield and North Berwick respectively. The Americans have only been defeated twice on home soil in the biennial contest, with Jim Milligan holing the winning putt for GB&I at Peachtree in 1989 and the triumphant away team at Ocean Forest in 2001 including Marc Warren and Steven O’Hara, as well as a certain Luke Donald.

“Yeah, I feel like whenever it comes to a Walker Cup, GB&I are always the underdogs,” said Shiels Donegan. “I think the key for us is that we don’t think about the moment. I like the mentality I took into the US Am, which was just enjoying yourself and having a good time. I mean, all ten of us have put in so much hard work to reach this point and there is a reason we have been picked and I don’t see why we can’t pull it off at Cypress.

“We had a training trip there at the end of October last year. The place is so special and they treated us amazingly. It’s my favourite golf course that I have ever played. I don’t really think there’s a single hole I would change and the views are amazing. We did a lot of good strategy prep when we were there. You’ve got to plan it out. There’s not a lot of drivers, which is completely different to what you see on TV most of the time nowadays.”

During the US Amateur, Shiels Donegan featured on US TV at the same time as Bob MacIntyre was trying to beat world No 1 Scottie Scheffler in the BMW Championship, one of the PGA Tour’s Play-Off events. That didn’t stop the Oban man, though, from getting in touch with his compatriot and MacIntyre, of course, also played in a Walker Cup in California - the 2017 match in Los Angeles - before he embarked on his professional career.

“I’d lost the match on Saturday in the US Amateur, which was gutting,” said Shiels Donegan. “I got back home to spend some time with friends and I looked at my phone to see there was a text from Bob. He’s one of the top sports stars in Scotland at the moment and it was really cool, especially as he was in the heat of battle at that time in a tournament. So, to take the time to message me and give me some words of encouragement was really amazing.”