Ireland will have four representatives on home soil from July 5-7 when the 2024 Arnold Palmer Cup visits Lahinch with Ryan Griffin, Max Kennedy, Kate Lanigan and Sara Byrne set to represent the International side.
The International side, coached by Maynooth University’s golf programme manager, Barry Fennelly was announced today live on Golf Channel alongside the USA side.
Griffin and Kennedy will don the international colours for the second time after they impressed in the US in last year’s contest while Lanigan and Byrne are set to make their debuts in the competition which puts the best college players in the world together.
Both Griffin and Lanigan have impressed for Maynooth University this season winning the R&A Student Tour Series Order of Merit with Griffin winning it for the second successive year.
Griffin won the Student Tour Series final at St Andrews, becoming the fourth Maynooth University player to win the event.
The Donegal man has four collegiate victories including three Student Series events and an Irish Intervarsity Championship.
Lanigan has had a terrific maiden season in Maynooth winning for the first time since 2018 at the Student Series event in Italy en route to becoming the first female from Maynooth University to win the Order of Merit title.
Royal Dublin’s Kennedy has had another excellent campaign with Louisville, picking up his second collegiate victory at the General Hackler Championship.
Byrne has been the leading Irish amateur this collegiate season, enjoying a trophy-laden final campaign in Miami.
Including the two golfer of the month awards she has won, the Douglas native won back-to-back collegiate events, shooting a 54-hole scoring record at the Hurricane Invitational while she also has four further top-10 finishes.
Byrne was also named on the 2023-24 Spring ANNIKA Award presented by Stifel Watch List. The ANNIKA Award presented by Stifel is given annually to the top female Division I collegiate golfer.
She has etched her name into not only the Miami program record books, but also the NCAA women’s golf record books as her 54-hole score of 197 (-19) at the Hurricane Invitational ranks first in program history and is currently tied for third for lowest individual 54-hole score in NCAA women’s golf history.
The Douglas woman scooped the 2024 Best Female Student-Athlete and Female Scholar Athlete awards at the Hurricane Honors.
International Head Coach Fennelly is in his 13th season as head coach of both the men’s and women’s programs at MU. Under his direction, Maynooth has become the perennial leaders in Ireland having won two National club titles and numerous Irish, British and European University titles.
Since the creation of the R&A Student Tour Series in 2019, now regarded as Europe’s elite student tour, Maynooth has dominated winning nine Student Tour Series titles made up of eight men’s victories and one women’s victory.
Maynooth have claimed the R&A Student Tour Series men’s order of merit crown for the past three seasons. Fennelly has worked with three Maynooth men who have gone on to win The R&A Foundation Scholars Tournament (Now the R&A Student Tour Series Final) which is highly regarded as the leading college tournament in Europe.
Maynooth have produced seven Arnold Palmer Cup participants, two Walker Cup players, one Curtis Cup player and numerous Irish men and women Internationals. In 2012, Fennelly led Ireland’s men’s team to a bronze medal at the World University Golf Championship. Fennelly served as assistant men’s coach for the International side that won the Arnold Palmer Cup in 2022 at Golf Club de Geneve. A member of the Arnold Palmer Cup men’s selection committee in 2016 & 2017, Fennelly has been serving on the international women’s selection committee the past five years.
International team selections include Bastien Amat (New Mexico; France), Josele Ballester (Arizona State; Spain), Carla Bernat (Kansas State; Spain), Emma Bunch (New Mexico State; Denmark), Adela Cernousek (Texas A&M; France), Hannah Darling (South Carolina; Scotland), Santiago de la Fuente (Houston; Mexico), Wenyi Ding (Arizona State; China), Maria José Marin (Arkansas; Colombia), Max Kennedy (Louisville; Ireland), Julia Lopez Ramirez (Mississippi State; Spain), Caitlyn Macnab (Ole Miss; South Africa), Paula Martín Sampedro (Stanford; Spain), Omar Morales (UCLA, Mexico), Jacob Skov Olesen (Arkansas; Denmark), Louise Rydqvist (South Carolina; Sweden), Calum Scott (Texas Tech; Scotland), Mirabel Ting (Florida State; Malaysia), Ben van Wyk (Georgia; South Africa), and Sampson Zheng (California; China).
Ryan Griffin (Maynooth; Ireland) and Kate Lanigan (Maynooth; Ireland) were selected as representatives of The R&A’s Student Tour Series.
Head Coaches Rhyll Brinsmead and Barry Fennelly selected Sara Byrne (Miami; Ireland) and Filip Jakubcik (Arizona; Czech Republic), respectively, as their coach’s picks.
United States team selections were Zoe Campos (UCLA), Luke Clanton (Florida State), Maisie Filler (Florida), David Ford (North Carolina), Megha Ganne (Stanford), Ian Gilligan (Florida), Melanie Green (USF), Ben James (Virginia), Jackson Koivun (Auburn), Rachel Kuehn (Wake Forest), Michael La Sasso (Ole Miss), Jack Lundin (Missouri), Anna Morgan (Furman), Farah O’Keefe (Texas), Catherine Park (Southern California), Kiara Romero (Oregon), Amanda Sambach (Virginia), Gordon Sargent (Vanderbilt), Preston Summerhays (Arizona State), and Brendan Valdes (Auburn).
Mary Kelly Mulcahy (Findlay) and Jackson Klutznick (Emory) were the non-Division I selections.
Head Coaches Matt Thurmond and Garrett Runion selected Jackson Van Paris (Vanderbilt) and Latanna Stone (LSU), respectively, as their coach’s picks.