The great Kathy Whitworth’s pairing philosophy for the inaugural Solheim Cup in 1990 was to partner players with similar personalities. That made the bulldog duo of Dottie Pepper and Cathy Gerring a no-brainer. Leading up to the first day of competition, the two close friends decided that Gerring would tee off on the first hole at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club. Pepper had the even holes. I can’t hit the first tee shot,
replied Gerring, who felt like she was hyperventilating. Gerring had won three times that season on the LPGA, and she wasn’t alone when it came to the terror of the first tee. Future LPGA Hall of Fame member Patty Sheehan had a similar talk with Rosie Jones 34 years ago. God, I’m a bit nervous,
Nicholas advised. Well don’t turn around now,
advised Nicholas. Nancy Lopez is walking onto the tee.
The way Davies remembers it, she made Nicholas hit that first tee shot. Except that’s not what happened. As for who struck the first shot in Solheim Cup history, that honor goes to Bradley, who hit a beauty down the middle for the Americans. Bradley’s partner, Lopez, has long regretted that she turned down the chance. To think that Nancy Lopez passed on history,
marveled Bradley, and she has not forgotten it.
NASA launched a shuttle during the prelude to the Solheim Cup at nearby Cape Canaveral, and the players all scurried outside during dinner to see it. No one could’ve known at the time just how perfectly that scene encapsulated what was to come. Nerves ran sky-high despite the humble nature of that first event, which served as a launching pad for what’s become the crown jewel of women’s golf. Even when hardly anyone was watching, players cared deeply.
The 19th Solheim Cup will be held Sept. 13-15 at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia. While Team USA boasts the top two players in the world in Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu, Europe has won the last three contests dating to 2017. The U.S. still leads the overall series 10-7-1, with the event’s first tie coming last year in Spain.
Player strategy wasn’t the only thing thrown together for that inaugural Solheim, which was announced in August at the JAL Big Apple Classic in New York and scheduled for mid-November. The idea of staging a female version of the Ryder Cup originally came from the late Joe Flanagan, head of what was then the Women Professional Golfers’ European Tour. LPGA commissioner Bill Blue latched onto it and approached Karsten and Louise Solheim, founders of Ping, as a potential sponsor during the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Florida, in January of 1990. The Solheims were already heavily involved in the LPGA, co-sponsoring four events around that time and working with numerous players.
The Solheims gave the LPGA three options on what to name it: the Ping Cup, the Karsten Cup and the Solheim Cup. Points have already started to accrue,
she recalled, so your first thought is where the hell do I stand?
The first Solheim Cup teams only had eight players. (It increased to 10 in 1992 and 12 in 1996.) Team USA used the top seven from the money list and one captain’s pick. Kathy Whitworth, the winningest player in all of golf with 88 titles, was selected captain.
