Prince's Golf Club, Kent. Following a 4-0 clean sweep in the first session's morning foursomes on Day 1, the Continent of Europe team was content with a 4-4 result in the eight afternoon singles matches to retain its four point advantage over their Great Britain and Ireland rivals. While the three Italian representatives, Luca Cianchetti, Stefano Mazzoli and Guido Migliozzi, struggled in the windy links conditions, not taking their opponents past the 14th, narrow 1-hole victories by Spain's Mario Galiano and Sweden's Robin Petersson allowed the visitors to retain their advantage.
While knowing that even a 2-2 result in the Day 2 foursomes would make a comeback extremely difficult for the home team, it was not to be. The opening foursome of Cianchetti and Mazzoli again struggled despite the more benign conditions on the links and spurred GB&I on to win the next two matches of the round. Even great golf by the final Spanish pairing of Galiano and Ivan Cantero Gutierrez could not capture a full point for the continental team, with the leaderboard showing 3.5-0.5 and a reduction of the visitor's lead to one.
The final singles session started slowly for a rattled continental team. By the fifth hole, no matches were going their way. However, a courageous comeback by Jeroen Krietemeijer (NED) from 3-down to all square with two to play was thwarted by a par-birdie finish by his opponent, current Amateur Champion, Scott Gregory.
A key point was returned by Mazzoli as he birdied the final three holes to win 1-up against Ireland's Jack Hume. Continent of Europe was back on top.
After Stuart Grehen (IRE) was untroubled by Cianchetti in Match 3, Matches 4 through 7 again brought the advantage back to the Continent of Europe with wins from Petersson over Grant Forrest (SCO) and Victor Veyret (FRA) over Jamie Bower (ENG) and two halved matches.
While the ninth and final Galiano/Alfie Plant (ENG) match finished GB&I's way on the 15th, Match 8, setting Gutierrez against Welshman, David Boote, continued with the visitors one point ahead and needing only a half from the final match.
Although 4-down after the 13th, birdies on the 14th and 15th brought Gutierrez closer. The short 16th was halved in pars, but Gutierrez won the par 3 17th with a courageous approach to a difficult pin placement and an easy par. Boote's approach was long.
Gutierrez's tee shot on the 18th found the thick rough, but he hacked-out short of the green and saved par. Boote played from the fairway to just short of the green. After lagging to three feet, Boote held his 1-hole advantage and the overall match resulted in the St Andrews Trophy's first halved result.
The under-18 equivalent match, the Jacques Léglise Trophy, will come to Prince's next month after this match, too, was halved last year at Royal Dornoch.