GAINESVILLE, Va. — If one thing could lift the Solheim Cup mood after a logistical disaster plagued the day’s highly anticipated start, it was the No. 1 player in the world throwing darts.
Nelly Korda set U.S. Solheim Cup records Friday with her fiery iron play, and she successfully turned the event’s spotlight from an avoidable transportation nightmare to a beautiful display of golf — momentarily, at least.
With Korda and Megan Khang’s 6&4 victory over Georgia Hall and Leona Maguire leading the way, the Americans head into Saturday’s morning session with a 6-2 lead over the Europeans. The U.S. team hasn’t led by four points or better at this stage in the competition since 1990. It’s seeking to win it for the first time since 2017.
Korda became the first American to win two matches on the first day of the Solheim Cup by at least three holes. She also won all eight par 5s. Sinking a 20-foot birdie putt on the 14th to make it official mid-Friday afternoon, Korda closed out the win with a triumphant fist pump and a celebratory “Suite Life of Zack and Cody”-inspired handshake with Khang. An hour later, Andrea Lee and Rose Zhang secured another point for the U.S. team when Lee nearly holed out for albatross, winning the match with an eagle.
That was the vibe by the end of Friday’s four-ball matches: light, energetic, unbothered. A day of dominance for the U.S. team. All six winning American matches ended on or before the 16th hole.
The shot that ultimately won the 8th match for @SolheimCupUSA 😙🤌@andrea_lee54 was spot on with this one pic.twitter.com/kzVaLfXAEK
— LPGA (@LPGA) September 13, 2024
The morning, however, felt different.
By 5 a.m. Friday, fans had flooded the Jiffy Lube Live parking lot to board shuttles that would transport groups to Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, four and a half miles away. They came in by the thousands, eager to be a part of the uniquely amped-up first-tee atmosphere at the Solheim. They would quickly realize something was very wrong.
Multiple fans who spoke to The Athletic said they noticed only a few shuttle buses initially at the lot, and volunteers — who needed to get to their assigned positions on the course before play began at 7:05 a.m. — skipped ahead in the line. Then organizers started boarding spectators on the infrequent shuttles one by one, resulting in a bottleneck effect that created 2-3 hour lines. Many fans traveled specifically to wake up and see the tense first tee shot for themselves. Instead, they missed it by hours. As a result, the grandstands surrounding the opening hole stood partially empty as music blared and both teams hit their drives.
At 9:29 a.m., the LPGA, which had trumpeted a record-setting number of attendees to this year’s event, apologized for the shuttle back-up and promised that they had made “significant changes to our transportation system to mitigate these issues moving forward.”
Even Korda took note of the vacant sections in the stands on the first tee: “Obviously we noticed that the stands were not full,” she said. Korda and Corpuz said the fans started trickling in by the fifth hole but really started to fill in the property by the back nine.
That’s when things started to turn around. The final four holes at Robert Trent Jones form a relatively compact loop compared to the rest of the expansive routing. Three morning matches finished around the par-3 16th, with the Americans winning the first two points, the Europeans taking the third, and the Americans rounding out with a win in the final pairing for a 3-1 start. As each winning U.S. match finished, assistant captains and fellow players were there to greet their teammates and celebrate the hot start amidst freshly packed-in crowds. As Korda teed off on the downhill par-3, spectators were nearly 10 people deep. When the morning session concluded, a mass migration began — back to the first tee.
The first tee shots of the afternoon fourball session at 12:05 p.m. effectively gave the Solheim Cup a take-two.
The grandstands were filled to the brim. The volume of the tunes blaring on concert-grade speakers matched the energy of those in attendance. Former President Barack Obama — a Robert Trent Jones Golf Club member — stood on the tee box, cheering players on and taking photos with captains, volunteers and media members. Khang and Korda skipped out of the tunnel and waved at the spectators on their way. “We started already out of the gates really pumping up the crowd, and it was so much fun all day,” Korda said.
“Nelly and I, our friendship goes back to Junior Solheim Cup days; that’s how we got really close,” Khang added. “Ever since that pairing back then I know we wanted to play on the actual Solheim Cup team as partners.”
The Solheim Cup was decidedly back. And Korda’s shot-making clinic in the opening afternoon took that spirit — which should have been there all along — to heightened levels.
The 25-year-old flagged approach shot after approach shot, making the game look like an AI-generated visual for perfect golf. She made two eagles on two of her last three holes. On the par-5 12th, she stuck her 5 iron to 2 feet. Before bending down to pick up her ball, she looked up at her European opponents and asked, “Is this good?”
With momentum carrying over from the morning session, Korda and Kang’s win was contagious. Zhang and Lee came back from a 1-down deficit to beat Linn Grant and Charley Hull — two of the European’s strongest players — on the 14th hole. The U.S. team’s only afternoon loss came when the Swedish duo of Anna Nordqvist and Madelene Sagstrom defeated Alison Lee and Lexi Thompson, 6&5. Rookies Lauren Coughlin and Sarah Schmelzel ended the day with a Couglin birdie to beat Emily Pedersen and Maja Stark, 3&2
“It’s been a really good day,” Lewis said. “I saw a ton of good golf, and really things played out the way we were hoping. So just really happy with the pairings I was able to put out, and the players produced some great shots and some great scores and got us a ton of points.”
For fans, the conclusion of play marked the end of a historic display of golf by the Americans. It also meant it was time to reload the more substantial number of shuttles back to the parking lot, with hopes of a better logistical start to their Saturday and the same vibes on the golf course.
(Top photo of USA’s Nelly Korda, left, and Megan Khang: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
