UVA junior men’s golfer Derek Bard (New Hartford, N.Y.) has been selected to the United States squad for the 2016 Palmer Cup. The Arnold Palmer Cup is an annual Ryder Cup-style competitionbetween American college golfers and European college/university golfers. This year’s event is June 24-26 at Formby Golf Club in Formby, England.
Bard is the first Virginia golfer selected for the Arnold Palmer Cup.
“Wow, it feels pretty good,” Bard said. “It is probably the highest honor in college golf you can achieve outside of winning the NCAA championship. If you play college golf, I think you always look at the Palmer Cup and think about being on that team. It means you are one of the top players in the nation. It’s a pretty special honor. I appreciate the Palmer Cup for selecting me to help represent the United States. It is truly an honor.”
Bard recently competed at the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club after earning an invitation by placing second at the U.S. Amateur Championships last summer. He currently tops the Virginia team with a 71.31 stroke average and has five top-five finishes this season in nine collegiate events. He tied for first at the U.S. Collegiate Championship in October.
“This is a tremendous honor and well deserved,” said Virginia coach Bowen Sargent. “It is an awesome accomplishment to be selected to the United States’ Arnold Palmer Cup team and to represent your country against the European squad. Derek has had a tremendous year highlighted by his appearance at the Masers last week. In addition to playing in the U.S. Open this summer, he also has this to look forward to. I’m very happy for him.”
Bard is joined on the 10-man team by Maverick McNealy (Stanford), Charlie Danielson (Illinois), Zach Wright (LSU), Rico Hoey (USC), Michael Johnson (Auburn), Nahum Mendoza III (San Diego State), Alistair Docherty (Chico State), Will Zalatoris (Wake Forest) and Will Gordon (Vanderbilt). The team is coached by Coastal Georgia’s Mike Cook.
McNealy, Danielson, Wright, Hoey, Johnson and Mendoza III were the six United States players selected by the Arnold Palmer Cup rankings. Bard, Docherty and Zalatoris were committee selections. Docherty was the designated non-Division I player. Gordon was Cook’s coach’s pick.
Team Europe consists of Sam Horsfield of Florida (England), Vanderbilt’s Matthias Schwab (Austria), Adrian Meronk from East Tennessee State (Poland), Lars van Meijel of Memphis (Netherlands), Augusta’s Robin Petersson (Sweden), David Boote of Stanford (Wales) Maynooth’s Stuart Grehan (Ireland) and Antoine Rozner (France) of UMKC, Mathias Eggenberger of Stirling (Switzerland) and Robin Sciot-Siegrist (France) of Louisville.
The current format consists of five four-ball matches, five foursome matches, and two sets of 10 singles matches for 30 points overall.
The USA reclaimed the Arnold Palmer Cup in 2015, 18–12, and leads the series 10-8-1.
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Chris Graham
