For LSU Golfer, Aine Donegan, A Chance To Represent Her Country And Bring Curtis Cup Back To GB&I

BATON ROUGE – In 2016, a young Aine Donegan, who had an interest in golf, watched in her home country of Ireland as Great Britain and Ireland won the Curtis Cup from the USA.

It was the last win for GB&I in the matches conducted every two years among the top women’s amateur golfers in the United States against a squad of golfers from Great Britain and Ireland.

Now Donegan, about to embark on her senior season of play at LSU, gets to live that same dream and hopefully inspire the youngsters of today as she will be one of three Irish players on the GB&I team in the 43rd playing of the Curtis Cup which begins Friday at Sunningdale Golf Club in Berkshire, England.

The matches get underway on Friday morning British Summer time with three foursomes matches (starting at 1:45 a.m. Baton Rouge time) and three afternoon four-ball matches that are set to begin at 7:05 a.m. CT. The same schedule is set for Saturday with eight singles matches set to begin at 4:05 a.m. CT (10:05 a.m. BST).

The matches were announced at the opening ceremony Thursday evening in Scotland and Donegan will be out in the second foursomes match (alternate shot) with Coulter at 7:55 a.m. BST (1:55 a.m. CT) against the American duo of Jasmin Koo and Zoe Campos. Koo will be a freshman at USC and Campos will be a senior at UCLA.

The 2016 matches in Ireland, which the GB&I team won 11.5-8.5, marks the last victory against the USA. In 2022, The USA defeated GB&I by a 15.5-4.5 scoreline, equaling the second largest margin of victory of 11 points, to win the Curtis Cup matches at the famed Merion Golf Club in Pennsylvania.

Donegan, who is ranked No. 78 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings, joins Beth Coulter and Sara Byrne from Ireland on the squad. Coulter is a junior at Arizona State and Byrne just finished her career at Miami.

Donegan had four top 10 finishes for the Tigers in the 2023-24 season, including her very impressive T4 finish in the 2024 NCAA Women’s Golf individual championship for which she was named an honorable mention All-American.

She has represented Ireland five times in what is called the Home Internationals – the girls’ competition in 2018 and 2019 and in the women’s in 2021, 2022 and 2024. She was 4-2-0 for the winning team earlier this month at Murcar Links in Scotland. In all five of those competitions, her teammates included Byrne and Coulter.

Donegan represented Great Britain and Ireland in the Vagliano Trophy in 2023 where she went 2-1-1 at Royal Dornoch in Scotland and has represented Ireland in the European Ladies’ Team Championship in Spain this past July and in the 2023 Women’s World Amateur Team Championship in Abu Dhabi.

The GB&I team has two very familiar names to college golf fans, Hannah Darling of Scotland, who will be in her final year for South Carolina; and, world No. 1 Lottie Woad of England and Florida State, who finished 10th last week as an amateur at the AIG Women’s Open. She was runner-up in the NCAA Championships in May after winning the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in April.

The Captain for the GB&I squad is Catriona Matthew of Scotland, who competed last week in what she said would be her final Women’s Open. She was previously the winning captain for Europe in 2019 and 2021 in the Solheim Cup, which matches the best professional women’s golfers and it is felt her experience will be beneficial to potentially slowing the US dominance in this event.

“Through the Solheim Cup, I have gained experience in building a high-performing and successful team, including bring together individual athletes from different countries and recognizing whose strengths will combine well to create successful pairings.”

When Donegan tees off on Friday, she will join fellow LSU golfers Latanna Stone, Austin Ernst and Meredith Duncan as Curtis Cup members. Donegan will be the first LSU player to compete for the GB&I side in the matches.

The competition will be televised by The Golf Channel and Peacock during the course of the three-day event. Coverage on Friday and Saturday will be from 7 to 11 a.m. CT with continuing coverage on Peacock from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sunday’s singles will be televised on both Golf Channel and Peacock from 4-9:30 a.m.