Team Europe won the Solheim Cup at Bernardus Golf in the Netherlands on Sunday. In part as a consequence of the decisions made by their captain, Anna Nordqvist? Or in spite of them?
When she announced that the team would be led out in the opening foursomes by the two highest-ranked players on her team, Charley Hull and Lottie Woad, a debutant, more than one commentator suggested this might be a risk akin to the one the US captain, Hal Sutton, took at the 2004 Ryder Cup when he paired Tiger Woods with Phil Mickelson. There’s none of the enmity between Hull and Woad that there was between those two men, but putting all your eggs in one basket…
Sutton’s choice did make him look like a basket case. His star turns lost twice on the first day and were never partnered again. Hull and Woad lost their foursomes but faired a little better than their American counterparts in the fourballs; they got a half. When Friday’s play concluded with the scores tied at 4-4, Nordqvist had used all her 12 players. Fair enough, but the other pairing she had repeated in the afternoon had been Celine Boutier and Nanna Koerstz Madsen who had first lost by 3&2 and then by 5&3. The four players who had provide the two points in the morning – Esther Henseleit, Leona Maguire, Maja Stark and Linn Grant – were not chosen for the afternoon.
Unlike Sutton, Nordqvist then doubled down. And again! Hull and Woad went out in the bottom match on Saturday morning, generating the expectation they would be rested in the afternoon. But no. They lost by 6&5 in the foursomes and then on the last green in the fourballs. The match score was tied at 8-8. Europe needed to win the singles to regain the trophy.
In their heyday as the greatest Ryder Cup partnership in history, winning 11 times out of 15 as a team, Seve Ballesteros and José Maria Olazabal generally suffered when it came to the singles after all they had given over the first two days. Over those four matches, Ballesteros won two singles, Olazabal one. But they at least went into Sunday having been victorious earlier in the week. Not so Hull and Woad. And their team would surely need them.
And they delivered. Hull, out first (again!), won the opening hole against Megan Khang and was never caught. Woad was in the eighth match out and when she sank a short putt to beat Auston Km on the 17th, she had just secured Europe’s success. (In a match behind her, Carlota Ciganda was already assured of at least a half.) When it was over, the hosts had prevailed by 15-13.
“It was really important to get the win,” said Woad. “I thought I had let everyone down even though I knew I was playing good golf.” More breezily, Hull noted: “Finally got our point, didn’t we, Lottie.” Apologies for having essentially reviewed what was a terrific team triumph primarily through the prism of two players who contributed two and a half points out of the 15 accumulated, but I think it is interesting in one particular regard. Napoleon famously said: “I’d rather have lucky generals than good ones.” Was Nordqvist lucky? I don’t know. But stubborn, certainly.