Solheim Cup win: Nordqvist’s four rookies deliver as Europe beat USA 15-13 at Bernardus

By Jack Shaw · Bernardus Golf Club, Netherlands · Published: 11:20 BST

• Europe regained the Solheim Cup with a 15-13 win over the United States at Bernardus Golf Club in the Netherlands, taking Sunday’s singles 7-5 after the first two days finished level at 8-8.
• Captain Anna Nordqvist fielded four debutants — Nastasia Nadaud (21), Julia Lopez Ramirez (23), Mimi Rhodes (24) and Lottie Woad (22). Three were captain’s picks; Woad was the only rookie to qualify automatically.
• Nordqvist’s wildcards delivered eight and a half points between them, against five from America’s three captain’s picks.

Europe’s Solheim Cup win was built on exactly the selections that were supposed to sink them. Anna Nordqvist went to Bernardus with four rookies in her side and spent the build-up defending a team she had described as being in transition. Three days later her debutants had carried the decisive stretch of the singles and Europe had the trophy back, 15-13, avenging the defeat in Virginia two years ago.

Solheim Cup win: how Europe’s rookies turned it at Bernardus

The match was level at 8-8 going into Sunday, and Europe won the singles session 7-5. Lottie Woad‘s putt carried Europe to 14 points before Carlota Ciganda closed the contest out, according to the BBC — the same Ciganda whose putt on the 18th had rescued a 4-4 first day. For the full chronological timeline of all three days at Bernardus, follow the rolling coverage at ReadGolf, and see how the week began in our report on Ciganda’s putt on 18 rescuing Europe on day one.

Context matters for Nordqvist, too. The Swede abruptly announced her retirement from competitive golf last month at the age of just 39, and captained a side she had openly billed as a work in progress.

The expert angle: the rookie gamble was not a gamble, it was the plan

The most telling number of the week is not 15-13. It is eight and a half against five. That is what Nordqvist’s wildcards — Nadaud, Lopez Ramirez, Rhodes, alongside the relative veteran Leona Maguire — returned compared with the three American captain’s picks. Captaincy in this event is usually judged on pairings and hunches. Nordqvist won hers on selection, which is the harder and less forgiving call.

Look at where she put her rookies on Sunday. Positions six, seven and eight — Nadaud, Lopez Ramirez and Woad — are the middle of the order, the matches that decide a Solheim Cup once the leadoff points have cancelled each other out. Sending three debutants into that window is a statement of trust, not a hedge. Only Mimi Rhodes, sent out fourth, failed to win among the youngsters playing singles for the first time, and it took a performance from world number one Nelly Korda to beat her — and Rhodes had already banked Friday fourball and Saturday foursomes points alongside Nadaud that kept Europe level.

Nordqvist had taken the heaviest criticism for sticking with the Charley Hull and Lottie Woad pairing, two Englishwomen who did not immediately click. She never blinked. “So many people said it was a bit of a risk having four rookies, but I was so impressed with them,” she said afterwards. On the evidence of Bernardus, Europe’s problem for the next decade will not be finding players — it will be finding places for them.

Wrap-up

Four debutants, a captain who had just announced her retirement, and the trophy back in European hands. Was Nordqvist’s rookie-heavy team the bravest Solheim Cup selection you have seen — or simply the most obvious one in hindsight?