England Golf’s Men’s Squad produced a stunning turnaround to win the European Cup of Nations by a huge margin of 14 shots at Sotogrande Golf Club, Spain
The England quartet of Harley Smith, Daniel Hayes, Eliot Baker and Tom Osborne sat in 4th place at the halfway point and six shots back of leaders Finland. However, a round of the tournament from Smith (-7), -3 for Hayes and -1 for Baker, helped England as a team shoot -11 on Friday to catapult themselves into top spot, which they held onto on the last day comfortably.
England Golf Men’s Performance Manager Ben Gorvett said: “We’re really pleased to get over the line and very proud of the team for digging in over the past couple of days. Winning by 14 shots overall is a tremendous victory and just shows the quality we have in our squad.
GOOD FRIDAY
“Friday’s round was phenomenal, shooting -11 as a team. It was one of the best team performances in a single round of golf at Sotogrande, which we were complimented on at the closing ceremony.
“We planned our week very well, we did a lot of preparation before heading there, and we got ourselves in a good place after the first two rounds. But we freed up a bit going into round three and there were some exceptional performances from the team, especially Harley and Dan.
“It’s phenomenal that we’ve come away with another win already in 2025 and we hope we can continue this form when we return to Spain for our biennial match later in April. A big thanks to Rob Watts who played a big role in getting the guys prepared for the event, and all the staff who have helped us get to where we are.”
Smith, who shot a six-over 78 in the first round to sit 56th out of 72 players, flipped things around with a 71 (-1) on Thursday, an incredible 65 (-7) on Friday and 68 (-4) on Saturday to help England seal victory.
Following his round of the tournament, Smith said: “I think I missed one green and three fairways, I just hit the ball really well into the areas I needed to, hitting to inside 15 feet about a dozen times in regulation, so I had a lot of putts from that range. It was a solid round.”
In the individual standings, Smith finished 2nd while Hayes was 3rd but it was Estonia’s Kevin Christopher Jegers who topped the final leaderboard with a very impressive -14 to win the event by a staggering eight shots.
Elsewhere Baker finished tied-13th overall with +7 across the four days, while Osborne ended tied-41st with +17.
