RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- The Ladies European Tour's aggressive, though ultimately unsuccessful courtship of Annika Sorenstam to captain its Solheim Cup team in 2013 led them to the Swede who initially piqued Sorenstam's interest in golf.

The LET announced here on Wednesday that Liselotte Neumann, 45, would be the next European Solheim Cup captain.

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Sorenstam was approached twice about becoming the captain, but each time declined, citing time constraints as a result of raising two young children.

Neumann, who won 13 LPGA and eight LET tournaments, is best known for her victory in the U.S. Women's Open in 1988, which Sorenstam credits for having inspired her to pursue golf more vigorously. Neumann played on six consecutive European Solheim Cup teams from 1990 through 2000.

"I think the Solheim Cup for me obviously has a lot of highlights in my career," she said here Wednesday morning. "I'm definitely ranking this at the very top, I think."

DUNSANY, Ireland -- This Solheim Cup feels like one of those baseball games where a team leads the entire way, leaves a lot of runners on base, and then loses in the last inning and regrets squandered opportunities. That the United States is tied 8-8 going into Sunday's singles play has to be an enormous emotional lift for a team that has played from behind all week.

That is not to say Europe doesn't have a chance to win Sunday at Killeen Castle and end a three-match winning streak by the Americans in the Solheim Cup. In fact, more Europeans are playing better than more Americans. They stand a very good chance. But so many opportunities have been wasted, you can't help but think they will be regretted.

When Laura Davies and Melissa Reid closed out Brittany Lang and Michelle Wie in the Saturday afternoon four-ball match 4 and 3 -- making Davies the all-time Solheim Cup points leader -- Europe had an 8-5 lead. But the Americans won the next three matches, the last of which -- Paula Creamer and Brittany Lincicome over Maria Hjorth and Azahara Munoz -- mirroring the late-round futility that has haunted Europe this week.

DUNSANY, Ireland -- Steve McQueen and James Garner were nowhere to be seen, but the United States still managed to pull off the golfing equivalent of the "Great Escape" at Killeen Castle in Ireland. At the end of a seemingly endless opening day marked by a quite disgraceful pace of play that will have done nothing to sell women's professional golf to an already dubious public, Europe, despite dominating much of the proceedings, will carry only a slender one-point lead into the second day of the 12th Solheim Cup.

By way of example, the top afternoon four-ball match between Morgan Pressel/Paula Creamer and Laura Davies/Mel Reid took more than five and a half hours to complete. But even that was outstripped by the bottom game between Suzann Pettersen/Anna Nordqvist and Cristie Kerr/Michelle Wie. That far from sprightly quartet took a mind-numbing five hours and 40 minutes to complete all 18 holes.

Three of the four post-lunch matches, in fact, exceeded the prescribed -- and incredibly generous -- time of five hours and 20 minutes. It wasn't pretty but it was definitely ponderous. A huge factor in the slowness being the much-criticized need of so many players to have their caddies line them up for both full shots and putts. It is surely time for that time-consuming and often-pointless practice to be outlawed.

DUNSANY, Ireland -- At one point deep into the back nine of Friday morning's foursomes session, it appeared as if Europe would go into afternoon four-ball matches leading the United States 3-1 in the Solheim Cup. But when Suzann Pettersen rolled in a birdie putt on No. 18 to give her and partner Sophie Gustafson a 1-up win over Juli Inkster and Brittany Lang, it felt fortunate that Europe managed to eke out a 2-2 tie.

Karen Stupples and Melissa Reid were 2 up against Paula Creamer and Brittany Lincicome with four holes to play, but lost three of them despite the fact the Americans made only one birdie in that stretch. The Europeans, in fact, shot 41 on the back nine -- and a newspaper 41 at that with a couple of generous concessions -- as the Yanks took Nos. 17 and 18 with pars to win 1 up.

In the other matches, Cristie Kerr, who played near flawless golf, and Michelle Wie, who made several keys putts, won Nos. 16 and 17 as they defeated Maria Hjorth and Anna Nordqvist 2 and 1. Catriona Matthew and Solheim Cup rookie Azahara Munoz never trailed as they handled Stacy Lewis and Angela Stanford 3 and 2.

DUNSANY, Ireland -- Team Europe captain Alison Nicholas won her first showdown with American counterpart Rosie Jones when she placed her power duo of Suzann Pettersen and Sophie Gustafson out last in the Friday morning foursomes session that kicks off the Solheim Cup. "You usually put them out early," Jones said Thursday with a smile as the pairings were announced. "Strike one."

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The first alternate-shot match will have Michelle Wie and Cristie Kerr taking on Maria Hjorth and Anna Nordqvist at 7:40. They will be followed by Paula Creamer and Brittany Lincicome against Karen Stupples and Melissa Reid; then Stacy Lewis and Angela Stanford will take on Catriona Matthew and Azahara Munoz before the session concludes with Brittany Lang and Juli Inkster going against Pettersen and Gustafson.

Sitting out the morning session for the Americans are No. 10 qualifier Christina Kim, captain's picks Vicky Hurst and Ryann O'Toole and short-hitting Morgan Pressel on a wet and long Killeen Castle course.

DUNSANY, Ireland -- Even the bookmakers on the European side of the pond think the United States will win its fourth consecutive Solheim Cup this week at Killeen Castle. If you have a few extra euros, pounds, dollars or gold bullion to wager, jump on those odds. Based on recent form, the European side is coming into this competition playing better golf than the Americans.

Yes, the U.S. side has won the last three Solheim Cups. Yes, the Yanks have an 8-3 lead overall. And yes, the Americans have seven top-20 players in the Rolex Rankings compared to one for Europe. But here is why the Cup is coming back across the Atlantic to reside until the 2013 competition in at Colorado GC.

• It's a home game. All of Europe's victories have come on friendly soil, winning twice in Scotland and once in Sweden. While they are 0-6 on American soil, they are 3-2 in Europe. And they know the course. Suzann Pettersen won the Ladies Irish Open at Killeen Castle a few weeks ago with teammates Azahara Munoz and Melissa Reid tied for second. In fact, the entire European team finished in the top 20.

DUNSANY, Ireland -- The 12-strong team representing the golfing subset also known as "American members of the LPGA Tour" will win the Solheim Cup at Killeen Castle because, well, they nearly always do.

So far, in fact, Uncle Sam's nieces have a more than 70 percent success rate in their biennial battles with teams of European-born LET members. In comparison with its corresponding old world counterpart across the pond, the LPGA Tour's home contingent is bigger, stronger and better, advantages that have historically and consistently seen the Americans start as favorites and finish victorious.

Sometimes it's just that simple: the team with the most good players wins. And this time round, as so often before, that accolade belongs to the visitors here in Ireland. Yes, the last third of non-playing skipper Rosie Jones' side looks more than a little vulnerable -- a pair of callow rookies, a 51-year old part-time assistant captain and a player who failed to record even one qualifying point in 2011 -- but the potency of the leading eight more than makes up for any perceived weakness down the order.

COUNTY MEATH, Ireland -- Quite simply, the twelfth staging of the Solheim Cup might be the most important in the history of the event. With the United States coming into Killeen Castle off three consecutive routs over Europe and holding an 8-3 advantage overall, another blowout by the Yanks is likely to trigger talk of how to level the playing field.

When the U.S. reduced the Ryder Cup to a couple of cocktail parties packaged around a biennial trouncing of Great Britain & Ireland, the fix was easy. And since GB&I added the European continent in 1979 -- thanks, Seve -- that contest has emerged as one of the most compelling and intensely competitive events in all of golf.

Suzann Pettersen leads a Euro team trying to end a losing streak to the U.S.

But that is not an option for the Solheim Cup. Seven of the 12 players are already from the continent. The concern among traditionalists who want to see the event continue to grow and the rivalry allowed to intensify is that there will be pressure to add either a third team from the rest of the world or simply make Europe a world team.