2015 Solheim Cup Comeback Sunday!

Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel also get a big hats-off from me.  They’re consummate professionals and they embraced their assignment to set the pace and the tone of the 2015 Solheim Cup. From start to finish they made an amazing team, beginning with their lead-off alternate shots match on Friday morning right through that difficult Saturday when things looked very dim for Team USA, to their Sunday singles matches where they outplayed two of Team Europe’s finest, Creamer v Sandra Gal and Pressel v Catriona Matthew.

I loved watching Cristie Kerr and Lexi Thompson work together.  An unlikely pairing — Kerr is wildly aggressive and sometimes borderline rambunctious and Thompson drew on that energy at the Solheim — they played like a well-oiled machine, losing none of their matches and together putting 4 points on the board for Team USA that they collected from fierce battles with the best the Europeans could send against them: Azahara Munoz, Carlota Ciganda (who was putting like a wizard throughout the competition), Karine Icher, Mel Reid and Charley Hull.

Angela Stanford’s management of her match with Suzann Pettersen is the stuff that fuels legends.  Stanford’s always been a weak sister on Team USA.  She hasn’t earned a single point in her last nine Solheim Cup matches but the point she took from Pettersen in their singles match — really a “grudge match” Stanford was playing for the entire Team USA, I sense — was the point that mattered.

It was a back and forth duel. First Stanford held the edge, then Pettersen, then Stanford again.  That was the point that tied things up for Team USA and it was a symbolic victory for the spirit of golf as well, a game  grounded in mutual respect and personal honor, principles many felt had been sorely violated Sunday morning.

Next: Team Europe Standouts