DEN BOSCH, Netherlands (AP) — A canal tour in Amsterdam. The glitz and glamor of a gala dinner. Loud, pumping music on the range. Ping pong and darts in the team room.
For the European and American teams, it’s been fun and games this week ahead of the first Solheim Cup held in the Netherlands.
Now the serious stuff is about to begin — and the captains have pretty much ensured an explosive start to the 20th edition of the biggest team event in women’s golf.
Out first Friday — at 7.40 a.m. local time, to be precise — in front of an estimated 3,000 spectators in and around the horseshoe grandstand encircling the first tee at Bernardus Golf will be Europe’s top two players, Charley Hull and Lottie Woad, against a U.S. pairing containing top-ranked Nelly Korda.
Expect noise, color and passion from the opening foursomes right through to the Sunday singles, inside and outside the ropes.
“Before I played my first one, I was really wondering, ‘What am I going to be like?’” European player Maja Stark said Thursday ahead of her third Solheim Cup. “Because when I play individual golf, I don’t really feel like shouting or doing fist pumps or anything like that.
“But then during Solheim, all of a sudden I started screaming when I made a putt. I thought, ‘Who is this? This is a new Maja!’”
Then again, maybe keeping a cool head when everyone else is losing theirs could be the key to victory this week as the Americans look to retain the trophy they regained two years ago with a 15 1/2-12 1/2 win in Virginia, which extended their overall lead to 11-7-1 since the first Solheim Cup in 1990.
To do that, they’ll need to prevail on the road for the first time since 2015.
They’ll also likely need a big week from Korda.
“When we come over here, we have a tendency to struggle a little bit,” Korda said Thursday before it was announced she’d be paired with Allisen Corpuz in an opening match that really whets the appetite. “But I would say, you know, the girls have been quite amazing. We have really kept it light and easy, and we’ve also grinded a lot.”
It could be that sort of week.
US team includes 35-year-old rookie
Both teams have only four players in the world’s top 30, and one of them — Angel Yin of the U.S. — has played just one event in the last 2 1/2 months because of a stomach issue. Another U.S. player, Lindy Duncan, is a 35-year-old rookie who was thinking about quitting golf just three years ago and still can’t quite believe she is here.
“Honestly, most of my focus has been on keeping my card and maintaining that kind of a status ... so this is a real pinch-me moment,” said Duncan, who has been sent out in Match 3 on Friday morning with Andrea Lee.
And that’s the thing about U.S. captain Angela Stanford. She has faith in every one of her players and that includes Yin, who Stanford was determined to give time to play her way back into some kind of form despite her recent problems.
Stanford, a veteran of nine Solheim Cups either as a player or assistant captain, was almost reduced to tears as she praised her team during Thursday’s opening ceremony that also featured her opposite number, European captain Anna Nordqvist of Sweden, addressing the loud, flag-waving crowd in Dutch for around a minute.
“Be brave, play with heart, play for each other and never forget the 11 teammates standing beside you because this week we are not 12 individuals, we are one team,” Nordqvist then said on stage as she turned to her players that hail from seven different European nations.
Emblazoned inside the European team room, Nordqvist revealed, is the message: “All in. All heart. All team.” They were all as one, too at Wednesday night’s gala event in a theater in Den Bosch, when each European player was dressed in the same navy ensemble.
Hull is the closest thing to being a separate entity — she came to the Netherlands later than the rest of Team Europe, preferring to stay in England to practice — and is now something of a veteran as she heads into her eighth straight Solheim Cup.
“We really shouldn’t do anything too differently — we’ve still got to hit a ball around the golf course and play good,” the Englishwoman said.
Nothing, though, is that simple at the Solheim Cup.
Korda: ‘No bad blood’
Emotions are sure to run high but Stark and Korda insisted Thursday that the matches will be played in a respectful manner, a world away from the ugly scenes that marred last year’s Ryder Cup, the men’s equivalent.
“There’s no bad blood,” Korda said. “I mean, we all see each other every week on tour. And I think it’s about representing your country well. When you have beef between each other, it’s not always good for the sport.”
Nordqvist said she came to a “mutual agreement” with Stanford early on in their captaincies that there’s a desire that “women’s golf is going to win this week.”
“I think,” she said, “the first tee at 7:40 a.m. tomorrow is going to be the place to be in the golfing world.”
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Steve Douglas, The Associated Press
