GAINESVILLE, Va. — Nelly Korda stood on the shaded hill adjacent to the 14th green at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club and tapped Rose Zhang on the shoulder.
They were watching Andrea Lee, two down to Europe’s Ensther Henseleit. The Americans had already secured their 11th and 12th points en route to their first Solheim Cup victory since 2017, but they had work to do. Shots left to execute. Messages left to convey.
Zhang whipped her head around and listened to Korda, who leaned in. “We need to put a little pep in Andrea,” the world No. 1 said to her 21-year-old teammate. Zhang nodded, turning back around to focus on Lee.
About an hour earlier, Korda lost her singles match to England’s Charley Hull, but she went 3-1-0 in this year’s cup, gaining 7.5 shots on the field on Friday. And Zhang had just taken down Carlota Ciganda, 6&4, for an undefeated, 4-0 run in her second Solheim appearance. The clubs were stored away. Their caddies had ditched their bibs and were already holding cocktails. Both players had already put on a show that lit up the Gainesville crowds and propelled the U.S. to their current position. They had already done all that they needed to do.
But as captain Stacy Lewis has said all week, there was “unfinished business.” The motto still rang true on Sunday afternoon, more than halfway into the session, despite a four-point American lead heading into the day.
Lee drained her birdie putt to cut the deficit in half and headed to the 15th tee as she listened to Zhang and Korda’s claps and words of encouragement. Then assistant captain Paula Creamer stepped in: She pushed Zhang up the hill after her fellow Stanford Cardinal. “Go with Andrea!” she said. Lee would go on to clinch the half-point — one that the Americans needed to win back the Solheim Cup.
Similar scenes played out all week for the Americans. The energy reverberated from the U.S. team room to the driving range to the golf course and back again. Twelve players, 12 caddies, five captains and dozens of assorted assistants, statisticians, physical therapists, and so on, stepped onto the Robert Trent Jones property and jived from the beginning.
“From the moment this team was together, they were together,” Lewis said.
Then they pulled off a 15 1/2 to 12 1/2 defeat of the Europeans — the first Solheim Cup victory for 10 of the 12 members of the U.S. But for a long 90 minutes, it felt like the Europeans had a chance to steal the cup back.
Lewis stood on the 18th fairway with her hands on her hips, pacing back and forth, as captains do when the fate of a year’s worth of work is on the line.
About 45 minutes had passed since Allisen Corpuz clinched the 13th point for the Americans, with a 4&3 win over Anna Nordqvist. Lee had just come back and halved her match with Henseleit. One full point was all that stood between the Americans and the Solheim Cup.
There’s no party like a Solheim Cup party 🏆 pic.twitter.com/9FPlT3J7Uu
— LPGA (@LPGA) September 15, 2024
As Lee walked off the green, a realization set in amongst the crowd, which had gathered by the thousands all weekend outside of Washington, D.C. The U.S. team’s most dominant players were already in the clubhouse and the remainder of the leaderboard was showing a whole lot of gray and blue. Only Jennifer Kupcho, who had lost her only other two matches, led her match.
Lexi Thompson stood tied with Frenchwoman Celine Boutier, having slowly given up a three hole lead. Behind her, Lauren Coughlin was tied with Maja Stark after clawing her way back from a 3 down deficit. And one group behind Coughlin was two-time major champion Lilia Vu, down one to European rookie Albane Valenzuela. Suddenly the path to 14 1/2 points felt more daunting than ever.
“That was the longest hour and a half of my life. I’m not going to lie,” Lewis said.
But Lewis had thought about this — she put these women in those positions for a reason.
“I figured it was going to come down to that 6, 7, 8 matchup, and I put people there that I knew that I could trust to make the putts and that could handle the moment,” Lewis said.
Coughlin had been one of the strongest players on the team despite being thrust into the Solheim environment with no experience, after starting the year ranked outside of the top 100 in the world and surging to No. 14 in eight months. Vu was still recovering from a back injury, grateful to just be playing golf again. But she’s Vu: when the 26-year-old needs to get something done, she gets it done. She won her first post-rehab LPGA start this summer.
Thompson missed her mid-range birdie putt on the 18th hole and lost the match to Boutier, who surged late and took advantage of the American’s collapse. But it was OK. The U.S. team’s dominant lead going into the day gave them flexibility.
Coughlin had been burning edges with her putts all day. A half-inch would have made the difference on 15. A few centimeters on 16. On 17, she finally got one to drop. After Stark hit an approach to tap-in birdie range, Coughlin stepped up and poured in a 20-footer on top of her.
The roar was booming. It originated from that 17th hole putting surface — an elevated point on the course compared to the 18th — and almost felt like it emanated throughout the pairings. The Americans hadn’t heard one like it in at least 20 minutes. They needed it.
Coughlin had another putt just like it on the last to clinch the cup, but she left it a foot shy. Stark drained an eight foot par putt to half the match.
“I knew she could handle the moment just from the way her attitude has been all week,” Lewis said of Coughlin. “Even when she was down today, the attitude was amazing. I had a lot of belief that she was going to keep that match going.”
One more half point on the board, one more to go.
Vu stepped up to her perfectly positioned drive in the 18th fairway, knowing exactly what she had to do. All Vu had to do was get it close her wedge shot from 103 yards close, and make the putt. Her back was against the wall, and she came out swinging. “On the 18th hole in the middle of the fairway. I saw that we were at 14 (points), I was like, oh, shoot. I better birdie this. Let me try my best,” Vu said.
She stuck her wedge to 2 feet, and when Valenzuela made her finish it, she sunk it. Vu immediately launched two arms into the air, and started charging towards her team.
With the 2024 Solheim Cup only a year removed from the last iteration of this event, Lewis didn’t have much time to process the tie in Finca Cortesin, Spain, which kept the cup with Team Europe. She only let herself think about it for a few moments: on the plane ride home, in tears.
“It didn’t really hit me until I got on the airplane and I was sitting on the airplane with my daughter and she was sleeping and I just lost it and I started crying,” Lewis said. “I was like, we did all this work for these girls to play to a tie, and that was literally the only moment. From that point though, it was right back to work because I don’t want that to happen again.”
Lewis’s work ahead of Robert Trent Jones involved optimizing pairings and determining the “course fit” ratings for her players, in collaboration with her team of statistics experts. But it also included a very intentional effort to make sure this team felt like a team.
Inspired by the idea of an LPGA intern, Lewis decided to send cardboard postcards to each players’ families. Whoever wanted to contribute — spouses, moms, dads, brothers, sisters — could leave a note or special memento for their player. They’d then get hung up in the U.S. team room. Khang’s read: “Shine Bright: Be the Moment.” Khang says she knew her dad had crafted the postcard because her middle name means “the sun” in Hmong.
From the very first day on site, Lewis and her support system looped the U.S. team into one family, and it worked.
Korda said playing on the team was the most fun she’s “ever had on a golf course.” Zhang said the week in Gainesville “reignited (her) passion for the game.” The Americans even got a fist pump or two out of Corpuz, who seldom cracks a smile.
The star power in the U.S. team room was radiant, with enough game to fill it up with all the individual trophies they have won. But it had been seven years since an American Solheim Cup win, long enough that 10 of these women had never been a part of one.
Now they have. They did it. Together.
(Top photo: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
