No Place Like Home

With a back-nine blitz in Sunday singles, Beth Daniel's Americans pull away to a 16-12 victory in the 11th Solheim Cup

Points well taken: Creamer (below) had reason to shout Sunday: She scored a pacesetting win over Norway's Pettersen. Above (from left to right) Pressel, Daniel and Kim celebrate a banner day west of Chicago.

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By Ron Sirak

Photos by Charles Laberge

August 31, 2009

Rich Harvest Farms is a sprawling bear of a golf course, at 6,670 yards the longest in Solheim Cup history. Mostly, holes exist in isolation, crossing creeks and chasms and cornfields with several quirky designs, such as trees plopped in fairways. But on the back nine there is a cozy corner—a trio of holes close together—and it was in that triangle of American noise an extremely game Team Europe lost its way and succumbed to a superior U.S. side bolstered by a massive singing, chanting, cheering home crowd in Sugar Grove, Ill. The final score was 16-12, the Americans' third consecutive rout as they extended their domination in the biennial competition to 8-3, but if ever there was a case when numbers did not measure the effort—and the heart—of an opponent, this was it.

Six pivotal matches went to the back nine Sunday with Europe ahead in three and all square in the other three. When the dust settled, Team USA claimed four of those six points. If those matches had ended the back nine the way they entered it, Europe would have won the Cup. The Americans' charge through that cauldron of patriotic sound—Nos. 12, 13 and 14, which served as an emotional springboard to the closing holes—was led by 49-year-old Juli Inkster, who rallied from 2 down to halve her match with Gwladys Nocera, and 19-year-old Michelle Wie, whose massive 312-yard drive on No. 15 helped her defeat Helen Alfredsson in what the folks who balance the books for the LPGA hope was a breakout performance, one that will lead to Wie's first tour win. She won 3½ points, matching Nocera for most in the competition.

"I was on the 13th tee helping the players and the caddies with clubs, and that's where it started to turn around," said U.S. captain Beth Daniel. "And that's where it turned around [Saturday] as well, in the afternoon for us. That was kind of our good‑luck corner, and it was loud in that corner, too. But I mean, they had to dig deep. They really had to dig deep to win this. I'm so proud of each and every one of them."

There are a lot of folks who should walk away from this Solheim Cup with a sense of pride—save perhaps whoever drew up the traffic plan for Friday's first day of competition, when some fans needed three hours to negotiate the 15 miles from hotels in Naperville to the course 50 miles west of Chicago and some family members missed seeing their loved ones tee off. Daniel was extremely efficient in her role. Her two captain's picks—Wie and Inkster—combined to win five points. Her strategy of playing no one more than four times and everyone at least three times—capitalizing on the superior depth on the American roster—worked. And her Sunday lineup won four of the first five singles points.

European captain Alison Nicholas, who was in tears after the defeat, also maneuvered her supposedly outclassed roster brilliantly and got to Sunday tied at 8-8. While both sides tried to deny the cold, hard numbers, the fact was Europe had four players outside the top 125 on the Rolex Rankings and the U.S. had no one lower than No. 51. Still, Europe got massive efforts from Nocera (No. 125), Becky Brewerton (139), Tania Elosegui (189) and Diana Luna (196), who combined for 6½ points. What killed Europe was that its three best players—Suzann Pettersen, Helen Alfredsson and Sophie Gustafson—were part of just three wins in the 10 combined matches they played.

"They played their hearts out," an emotional Nicholas said quite accurately. "Unfortunately, the Americans birdied a few more holes than we did. But I can thank [my players] for a great experience. They're a great bunch of girls. They gave 100 percent, and that's all you can do."