So what is the Solheim Cup?
 

Put plainly, two continents’ golfers tee it up over three days in a team match-play competition staged every two years between the USA and Europe. It’s red vs blue and it’s loud. Real loud.

 

Where is it happening?
 

Re-settling on even-numbered years, after Andalusia 2023, the 2024 Cup will be played outside Washington DC at the 7425-yard, par-72, Robert Trent Jones Golf Club. Played on Lake Manassas the course’s slope (difficulty rating) of 145 sits somewhere between Inverness Club (151) and Finca Cortesin (138). Barak Obama, whose handicap is “an honest 13” joined the club in 2017.

In the competition’s 34-year existence, the home side has only lost on five occasions, and Europe has only won in the States twice. A $545m boost to the local economy offers further incentive to host the competition. Should they need it.

 

 

Where did it all start and how is it going?

 

Taking its name from Karsten and Louise Solheim – who founded the manufacturing company that makes Ping golf clubs – the inaugural Solheim Cup was won by the US at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club in 1990.

With scores at nine a piece in the 18 iterations since, the US enter this year’s competition with a slender 10-9 lead over Team Europe. Yet with golf's prevailing winds blowing the Solheim Cup towards European shores in recent years – the team in blue ‘n’ yellow having won at Gleneagles in 2019 and Ohio’s Inverness Club in 2021, before retaining the crystal-cut glass trophy at Finca Cortesin in Andalucía last time out – a draw is all that’s required to level it up in DC.

 

How does it all work?
 

With practice rounds starting three days before the main event on Tuesday 10 September, there will be 28 matches proper starting on Friday 13th. Three different types of match play – foursomes, fourballs and singles – will determine the winner, with each match worth one point to the team total. 

Foursomes sees two golfers from each side of the Atlantic alternate between shots with each team of two using one ball. Four matches are played on Friday morning and four on Saturday morning. Beginning at 7.05am both days (12.05 BST), there’ll be an equally entertaining scramble to the first tee from the events near 150,000 spectators at dawn. 

Fourballs also requires two golfers from each team to compete, but each player will use their own ball. It’s a matter of best score wins from there. Four fourball matches are scheduled each afternoon for the first two days, due to begin at 12.05pm (5.05 BST) on both days at 15-minute intervals. 

Singles will take place on Sunday with each of the 24 players competing against each other in head-to-head contests. Starting at 8.50am (1.50pm BST), with the winner crowned around 15.40am (8.40pm BST).
Those donning the Star-Spangled Banner will need to reach 14.5 points to win but since the Europeans are defending champs, they’ll only need 14 points to tie and retain possession of the Solheim Cup.

 

What does the winner get?

Like the Ryder Cup, there is no monetary compensation for participating in the Solheim Cup. And with players all wearing identical clothes, there’s little room for cash in the form of sponsorships. A cut-glass 19-inch tall Irish Waterford Crystal trophy will be given to the winning team and was designed in 1990 by Ireland’s Billy Briggs. 

 

Who will captain the two teams?

The two skippers, Stacy Lewis and Suzann Petterson, will reprise their roles after 2023. Petterson has kept Sweden’s three-time major champion Anna Nordqvist, ‘Mrs Solheim Cup’ Dame Laura Davies, and Caroline Martens as vice-captains for this year’s event, with Mel Reid also named. 

US Women’s Open 2010 champion, Paula Creamer, and Solheim stalwart, Brittany Lincicome, will serve as assistant captains for the US, with Morgan Pressel and Angela Stanford completing Lewis’ backroom line-up. 

 

How does qualification work?
 

Strangely it’ll be different for both teams. And with neither side dominating the world’s top 10, Team USA will contain the leading seven players in the Solheim Cup points standings, with the next two available players in the world rankings and three captain’s picks completing the team. 

Underdogs Europe will take the top two players in the European Solheim Cup points list, along with the next six players in the world rankings and four captain’s picks.

It sees a continued vibes-based tactic from the Europeans who have made 56 captain’s picks to America’s 27 since 1998.

 

 

 

 

Who’s competing this year?

Of the 24 women competing in 2024’s Solheim Cup, four are ranked inside the top 10 in the world, and each of those will rock up in red, white and blue. Fourteen-time LPGA Tour winner, and Olympic gold medallist, Nelly Korda tops the lot and enters the tournament as world number one. Despite registering a 7-4-1 Solheim Cup points record in her favour, the 25-year-old from The Sunshine State is yet to win the Cup in her three previous attempts. 

Rolex Rankings’ world number two, Lilia Vu, has registered five LPGA Tour victories since qualification began at the 2023 Tournament of Champions but enters her second Solheim Cup with just one point from a possible four. Bettering Sweden’s Madelene Sagstrom in the Sunday singles matches last year, the 26-year-old from Fountain Valley, California enters the tournament on an upward trajectory with little room to do worse. 

For those on the other side of the Atlantic, LPGA Tour winners Charley Hull and Linn Grant carry the yellow-starred flag. Kettering’s Hull has earned three top-three results on the Ladies European Tour this season, while September saw Grant realise her second career Scandinavian Mixed title spectacularly in Helsingborg, Sweden (having started the day 11 shots behind runaway 54-hole leader Sebastian Söderberg). Despite their previous escapades, miracles and the rest, on paper, it remains a stern task for the Europeans. 

 

How are international relations?

The Solheim Cup hasn’t been short of controversy over the years. Yet, it seems the team who is wronged usually fights back to win outright. 

Most recently, Europe’s Madelene Sagstrom was reduced to tears in 2023. With Nelly Korda’s eagle put on the 13th stopping just shy of the hole, her ball was swiftly picked up by Sagstrom, conceding a birdie. However, the Swede was deemed to have not waited long enough and the world number one was credited with an eagle to win the hole and move one up. 

‘Gimmie Gate’ in 2015 saw Alison Lee pick up her ball on the 17th at Sankt Leon-Rot, believing the putt had been conceded. It hadn’t. Suzann Pettersen and Charley Hull were already walking to the next tee and had not given the go-ahead.

And you better believe it goes back further than recent times. When Annika Sorenstam holed a chip shot from just off the 13th green for birdie at Loch Lomond in 2000, she thought she had pulled her and Janice Moodie level in their fourball against Kelly Roberts and Pat Hurst. Team USA had other ideas.

Despite being on the green, Robbins pointed out that she faced a longer putt than Sorenstam's chip and, after consulting captain Pat Bradley, ordered the shot to be retaken.

Although the European side would go on to lose the match 2 and 1, they would recover to claim the Solheim Cup trophy for only the second time in their history. Spurred on by the happenings on 13.

 

 

 

 

How can I follow the action?

Every shot will be live on Sky Sports from September 13, with radio on BBC 5 Live. Tickets for the event will set you back upwards of £2,000 plus travel and accommodation for the weekend.

 

 

Getting The Nod

Forget qualifying, Pitch plucks out five of the best to make it via the captain’s picks in Solheim Cup history. 

Carin Koch – 2002

In her second start as captain’s pick, Koch improved on her debut with a more-than-decent 4.5 point showing. A lone bright spark in a relatively weak European team, the Swede was one of just two players to earn more than two points, the other was Annika Sorenstam with 3.5. And that’s despite Koch, then 31 years old, being three months pregnant at the time.

Michelle Wie – 2009

Hawaii’s Michelle Wie made her debut in 2009 as a 19-year-old phenom, earning 3½ points that featured a 1-up Singles win against 44-year-old veteran Helen Alfredsson.

Azahara Munoz – 2011

Captain’s picks played pivotal roles for the Europeans once again in 2011 with rookies Caroline Hedwall (2-1-1) and Azahara Munoz (2-1-1) each bringing in 2.5 points for captain Alison Nicholas.

Hedwall tied U.S rookie Ryan O’Toole and Munoz bettered Angela Stanford, 1-up, in the final two matches to deliver the crystal-cut Cup to Europe, 15-13. 

Caroline Hedwall – 2013

At it again in 2013, the Swede made Solheim history as the only player ever to earn five points in a single event. Her Sunday Singles match against Michelle Wie was tied on the 16th hole before Hedwall went on to birdie the 18th to win, 1-up. The Europeans rolled the US 18-10 on that occasion.

 

 

 

Paula Creamer – 2015

‘The Pink Panther’, now a veteran on her fifth showing, earned the final point to complete the largest comeback in Solheim Cup history. Erasing a four-point deficit on Sunday, the US won 8.5 points of the available 12 to win by the tightest possible margin in Germany. 

 

For The Record

The Solheim Cup in numbers. And there's one standout star.

 

 

 

Most Solheim Cups played

Europe – 12, Dame Laura Davies

Most matches played

Europe – 46, Dame Laura Davies

Most matches won

Europe – 22, Dame Laura Davies and Annika Sorenstam

Most foursomes matches won

Europe – 11, Annika Sorenstam

Most fourball matches won

U.S. – 11, Cristie Kerr

Most singles matches won

Europe – 6, Catriona Matthew
U.S. – 6, Juli Inkster

Most matches won by duo

Europe – 5, Dame Laura Davies/Alison Nicholas

Most points earned

Europe – 25, Dame Laura Davies

Most points earned by duo

Europe – 5, Dame Laura Davies/Alison Nicholas
U.S. – 5, Cristie Kerr/Lexi Thompson

Best individual performances

Europe – 5-0, Caroline Hedwall (2013)

Largest margin of victory

Europe – 8 points, 18-10 (2013)

Largest margin of victory, individual match

U.S. – 8 and 7 (Pat Bradley def. Trish Johnson in singles in 1990)

Youngest competitor

Europe – Charley Hull, 17 years, 149 days (2013)

Oldest competitor

U.S. – Juli Inkster, 51 years, 91 days (2011)

Holes-in-one

1 – Anna Nordqvist (2013)