The pride and purpose of the Armed Forces Cup

FOX Sports Insider

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The game of golf has no shortage of competitive formats, from traditional stroke play to Stableford to skins to foursomes and the much-loved scramble – which is mostly reserved for the hit-and-giggle rounds enjoyed by friends.

There is one that stands above all others as a test of steel and nerve, however. Matchplay, where a round essentially involves 18 collective one-hole competitions against a single opponent who happens to be right next to you, demands magnified levels of attrition and sturdiness of hand.

“If you meet any of our members, you’d see,” Joshua Peyton, president of the Veteran Golfers Association and founder of its Armed Forces Cup event, told me recently. “You’d soon realize why there was no other option but matchplay.”

The VGA started in 2014 as a neat idea to get military veterans out onto the course for reasons both social and cathartic, and has grown into an organization of more than 18,000 members who participate across upward of 1,000 nationwide events.

Perhaps its most special is the Armed Forces Cup, staged since 2021, where veterans from the Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard use their wits and clubs and camaraderie to tussle it out each year for bragging rights that will last all the way to the next year’s competition. Space Force veterans also participate, and are incorporated into the Air Force squad.

There should never need to be a special reason to write about the sacrifice made by America’s veterans, but sometimes the timing is too good to ignore. As another holiday comes before us this Fourth of July, the latest edition of the Armed Forces Cup, which took place on Memorial Day weekend, will be re-broadcast on Wednesday on FS1 (7 p.m. ET).

The services and sports have been linked together throughout history and that connection remains tight. The awe-inspiring Army football team from the World War Two era. Pat Tillman and his ultimate sacrifice. Coach K’s career as an army officer and his coaching start in charge of the Black Knights. The role the resumption of sports had in helping heal the immediate pain of 9/11. The pageantry involved in the Super Bowl and Major League Baseball games. And so much more.

Television coverage aside, the Armed Forces Cup isn’t played out in front of huge numbers. The galleries aren’t several people deep. It is intimate and familial but full of ferocious competitiveness each year and was so again this time.

The course, Champions Retreat, is steeped in golfing royalty. Situated just outside Augusta, Georgia, it is the only collection of courses (three separate nine-hole masterpieces) in the world designed by the historic trio of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. Furthermore, it hosts only two outside tournaments, the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and the Armed Forces Cup.

“This is our Ryder Cup,” retired colonel and Army team captain Steve Bristow said. “You can take any player on any of the teams and I guarantee they feel as proud – and maybe as nervous – in the way we represent our branch as any of the United States or European players do in the actual Ryder Cup.”

While professional golf has been through a turbulent year, no one will ever accuse this other side of the game of having its priorities mixed up.

Peyton was involved in a vehicle rollover while undertaking Army service in Northern Iraq in 2011, was transported by medevac to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., and had his hand narrowly saved from amputation due to the expertise of doctors.

He said he was in “a dark place” in the months that followed, a natural by-product of the trauma he experienced. He’d played sports his whole life, including baseball at West Point, and was now in need of a point of focus.

He set up the VGA, wanting members to get active and a reason to get out of the house. He knew what service people are like, the inherent competitiveness and the need to be involved in something, the benefits of pursuing achievement.

“The VGA is a special thing,” retired Army sergeant major Tim Stanton said. “It is an opportunity for people to be around others who know what it is like to have been in their situation, doing something they love, competing at it, and just living it.”

The military both builds character and reveals it, a place where the repercussions for failure or missed steps are on a different level to what most of us will ever face.

That breeds resiliency, but it also can create a sense of loss once the heightened responsibility is taken away. As the VGA continued to grow, Peyton and co-founder Joe Caley tried to reach as many parts of the country as possible, spreading sportsmanship and camaraderie. The Armed Forces Cup was a natural extension.

“You can probably imagine what the trash talk was like,” Stanton added. “We are devoted to the same purpose, serving the country as part of the armed forces. But never underestimate how much it means for each branch to prove they are the best. That runs through everything and this is the perfect outlet for it.”

We’re not in the business of spoiler alerts here, but the 2023 event culminated in an extraordinarily tight outcome that defied the laws of probability and was sealed, as you might expect, by one man’s ability to tune out all the pressure bearing down upon him.

“It kind of summed up everything that it’s about,” Peyton said. “Togetherness and pride and devotion to service. But also a true, grueling, hard-won sporting competition that was thrilling to watch.”

Participation was set up in a way to reward both excellence and high participation levels in VGA events.

The 10-strong squads had everyone from the scratch golf to the weekend warrior eligible, creating tense finishes with the more proficient player often having to give up significant headway on each hole.

It was sports, no question about it, but also something else. Just as holidays mean different things to different people, so too does each year’s Armed Forces Cup experience provide something unique for each member of every team.

“There is nothing like the feeling of being there,” Peyton said, with a huge smile. “You kind of have to be there, or watch it, to get the full picture.”

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the daily newsletter.

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