Starting Saturday, the 51st Walker Cup will kick off at Lahinch Golf Club in Ireland, and the home team, Great Britain & Ireland, will be trying to win for the first time since 2015. Earlier, our Jamie Kennedy explored whether the Irish course will give them the advantage they need, but now they seem to have a new ally: A stomach bug. According to Golf Channel's Brentley Romine, illness kept two American players from practicing on Thursday, Oklahoma State's Ethan Fang and Alabama's William Jennings. The U.S. captain, Nathan Smith, said they're "good to go," but then again, that's what you would say, isn't it? As Romine noted, this seems to be a common theme: a stomach bug hit 16 different players at the 2021 Walker Cup, requiring alternates to swap in, and some players had to visit the ER. And at the Rome Ryder Cup in 2023, members of the American team contracted a mysterious illness before enduring a thumping from Europe. Hopefully, for the sake of competition, everybody will be ready to play at Lahinch on Saturday, but now the Americans have a built-in excuse if things go wrong for the first time in a decade.