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<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWhen I think of Jay, I think of what a great golfer he was under pressure,\u201d said Nathaniel Crosby, who played for Sigel in the 1983 Walker Cup and competed against him in elite amateur events before and after those matches. \u201cWhen he was playing hero golf, he found an extra level of concentration that enabled him to hit 2-irons to the tightest imaginable pins.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to being on Sigel\u2019s Walker Cup team in 1985, Davis Love III also competed against him as an amateur. And he, too, was awestruck.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you drew Jay, it was like going against Tiger Woods,\u201d the 21-time PGA Tour winner said. \u201cI remember one U.S. Amateur when he wore me down even though I was outdriving him by 50 yards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two-time Walker Cup captain Jim Holtgrieve, who also played in the match three times and won the first U.S. Mid-Amateur ever staged, has similar memories. \u201cHe was the man in amateur golf for a long time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Amid all of Sigel\u2019s playing accolades, what is perhaps not nearly as recognized or properly appreciated is what a bang-up job the Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, native did as captain of a couple of American squads, a job he held down as he also competed. Sigel not only led his golfers to victory in 1983 at Royal Liverpool in England (when he was 39) and at Pine Valley two years later but did so while also playing four matches each time \u2013 and compiling a 3-3-2 record against golfers from Great Britain and Ireland who in most cases were considerably younger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way Jay carried himself, the way he played, the career he had created for himself as a lifelong amateur, he was our Bobby Jones, and we really respected him for that.\u201d \u2013 Davis Love III<\/p>\n
Just as unsung is what he brought to the team room as a captain.<\/p>\n
In many ways, his approach to that job started with his belief that there was no greater experience in golf than playing for your country.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe certainly felt that as a player,\u201d said Love. \u201cAnd to also serve as captain was the ultimate honor for him, because he really liked the idea of doing both.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could tell he enjoyed it,\u201d added Love, who was only 21 when he joined Sigel\u2019s squad for the 1985 matches. \u201cHe liked the organization that came with the job, the strategy of who played with whom and when. And back then, the Walker Cup was a guys\u2019 trip to Pine Valley, which is where the matches were played that year and a time when it was a very small and very modest event.\u201d<\/p>\n
Love recalls how much respect Sigel commanded and how easily he interacted with young and older players alike.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way Jay carried himself, the way he played, the career he had created for himself as a lifelong amateur, he was our Bobby Jones,\u201d Love said. \u201cHe was also someone we could lean on, if need be. Jay was very serious, but he also had a great sense of humor and was very inclusive and approachable.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Jay Sigel hoists the Walker Cup in 1983. Courtesy USGA Museum<\/p>\n
Brad Faxon, who competed on the 1983 team the same year that he graduated from Furman University, remembers that approachability.<\/p>\n
\u201cJay was always asking us questions,\u201d he said. \u201cHe wanted to know what we thought. And he never talked about himself. He was warm and humble, a hard-working guy who led by example.\u201d<\/p>\n
A member of that same squad, Holtgrieve recalls the way that Sigel handled things with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly on, he asked me about my game and who I wanted to play with, things like that,\u201d said Holtgrieve. \u201cAnd he said that he wanted me to be honest. I told him that Bobby Lewis and I wanted to play with each other. We were the old guys, but we had a lot of history playing together. Jay said, \u2018Absolutely,\u2019 and put us out there for all of the singles and foursomes matches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holtgrieve also recalls that in those days, there were no vice captains to assist the man in charge. \u201cSo, Jay asked Bobby and me to help out some of the young guys on the team in the practice rounds and give them a sense of what was coming up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Holtgrieve provided further evidence of how Sigel performed his duties as Walker Cup captain by sharing his old friend\u2019s reports from the 1983 and 1985 competitions, documents that Sigel submitted to the USGA once play was complete.<\/p>\n
In the first of those, regarding the Royal Liverpool match, which the U.S. won, 13\u00bd-10\u00bd, Sigel opened by stating that \u201cthese biennial matches are the pinnacle of any amateur career,\u201d adding that \u201cbeing named playing captain is without a doubt the highest honor ever bestowed upon me.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few paragraphs later, he demonstrated his belief in the importance of collaboration with his players with a section about what happened in a team meeting before the second day of competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith only one hour in which to turn in our \u2026 line-up, and the score 6\u00bd to 5\u00bd in favor of the U.S., we quickly gathered. I realized we could change the originally prescribed formula of everyone playing 3 times by putting out our strongest performers. However, I truly believed that everyone, regardless of performance at the moment, should play 3 times. After much discussion by the entire team, the following comments were heard: we came here to win; we must \u2018play\u2019 our best players; I am not too proud to sit out \u2013 anyway I am playing lousy and so and so should play instead of me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a very interesting meeting with the result that 2 of our players played 2 times and 4 of our players played 4 times. I even let the team select who should play first (Willie Wood) and last (Sigel). I turned in the scribbled line-up with no time left in the allotted hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
In those same Walker Cup matches, Sigel even displayed a Seve-like ability to get out of trouble, and with the team uniform, no less.<\/p>\n
In that same report, Sigel described \u201cthe key match\u201d as being the first one played the second morning by the two fellows who ended up playing only two matches in that Walker Cup, Nathaniel Crosby and Bill Hoffer, against, GB&I\u2019s top team of George Macgregor and Philip Walton.<\/p>\n
Sigel wrote that his players \u201cwere very positive about this new approach to our line-up. Privately, I said to them that they could do it \u2013 they could knock off the #1 team. As the match progressed and they got past the \u2018nervous\u2019 holes, they played strongly and won 2 up.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth Bill and Nate are scrappers and fine gentlemen. They certainly helped the captain\u2019s situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other examples of Sigel\u2019s management style can be found in his report from the 1985 matches at Pine Valley, where the Americans prevailed by a similarly close score of 13-11. In outlining the process of preparing a tentative lineup for the foursomes, he wrote: \u201cI had played with all of the players, had their records and knew their abilities. I asked Scott Verplank if he knew of any personality conflicts; he did not. I asked him who he wanted to be paired with, and he said me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Captain Jay Sigel (top row,\u00a0 center) and the victorious 1983 Walker Cup team. Courtesy USGA Museum<\/p>\n
So, that is what the captain did, going out first each day with Verplank, who was fresh off winning the PGA Tour\u2019s Western Open as an amateur. The pair won one match and halved the other.<\/p>\n
Sigel also showed his analytical side in laying out a formula he used for practice rounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI vividly recall my first [Walker Cup] match in 1977. I felt extreme pressure to do well. Practice rounds mean different things to different people. For instance, several balls, no holing out, keeping score, picking up, playing fast or slow. Because of this, I am very pleased with a routine I developed which involved a point system as follows: birdies +2, pars +1, bogies 0 and double bogies -2. My design was to not put too much pressure on someone to post a score but to prepare for match play. This was critical on a course such as Pine Valley, and it really had the group interested and quite pleased with its results. Nobody got sloppy in practice, yet they did not have the pressure of posting a score \u2013 only points. We all threw in $2 apiece and utilized this for foursomes as well as singles.\u201d<\/p>\n
In those same Walker Cup matches, Sigel even displayed a Seve-like ability to get out of trouble, and with the team uniform, no less.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clothes did not arrive until the team arrived, and I had to arrange through the [Pine Valley] pro, Charley Raudenbush, for a tailor to get the lengths and waists on 30 pairs of slacks and sew buttons and make minor adjustments on the coats,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
Whether it had to do with pants or pairings, the man could coach as well as he played.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2025 Global Golf Post LLC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jay Sigel is shown with his 1984 Ben Hogan Award, 1984 Bob Jones Award and a replica of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,84198,99,84199,62310],"class_list":["post-133687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-jay-sigel","tag-sports","tag-usga","tag-walker-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/24GJ0111_F3A0074-700x468.jpg\")
Jay Sigel is shown with his 1984 Ben Hogan Award, 1984 Bob Jones Award and a replica of the Havemeyer Trophy at his family home in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, in January 2024. Courtesy Jason E. Miczek, USGA<\/p>\n