Solheim Cup: Ciganda’s putt on 18 rescues Europe as day one ends level at 4-4

By Jack Shaw · Bernardus Golf, Netherlands · Published: 20:05 BST

• Day one of the 2026 Solheim Cup finished 4-4, with the morning foursomes and the afternoon fourballs both shared 2-2.
• Carlota Ciganda holed a par putt on the 18th to rescue an unlikely half for Europe after Lauren Coughlin missed the chance to win the point for the United States.
• Leona Maguire became statistically the most successful European player in Solheim Cup history — and was then left out of the afternoon session.

Europe went ahead in three of the four afternoon fourballs and should have gone to bed with a lead. Instead the rain came, the United States roared back, and the 2026 Solheim Cup is dead level at 4-4 after a compelling opening day at Bernardus Golf.

How Europe’s fast start disappeared

The morning foursomes closed 2-2, Europe’s points coming from Maja Stark and Linn Grant, and from Maguire and Esther Henseleit, who beat Andrea Lee and Lindy Duncan. Home captain Anna Nordqvist then rested all four for the fourballs. Europe surged ahead in three matches after lunch — before, as the Guardian’s Ewan Murray put it at the course, blue began to be wiped from the scoreboards.

Megan Khang and Alison Lee won the one straightforward afternoon match 5&3, and Yealimi Noh produced the shot of the day from a fairway bunker on the 17th, unable to see the green yet finding five feet and converting. Charley Hull and Lottie Woad had been three up after 11 holes. Only Ciganda’s par at the last stopped the day tilting America’s way entirely. For the full hole-by-hole timeline of the week, follow the rolling coverage at ReadGolf.

The expert angle: Nordqvist’s rotation is already the story of this Solheim Cup

Sitting your two winning foursomes pairings is a captain’s pick, not an accident — and by Friday evening it looked like the decision that cost Europe the lead. Nordqvist’s four rested players had returned both of Europe’s morning points. In their place, Céline Boutier and Nanna Koerstz Madsen, who had visibly toiled in the foursomes, went out again and lost again — two defeats from two on the opening day.

The Maguire call carries the most history. She was controversially lightly raced as Europe lost the 2024 Solheim Cup — and on the afternoon she became her continent’s most successful Solheim player by the numbers, she was watching. There is logic in holding back your bankers for a long weekend. There is also a hard truth in matchplay: momentum is a resource you spend, not one you bank, and Europe finished the day with none of it.

Ciganda, whose form book says one thing and whose Solheim record says another — she has now won 13 matches in the event — framed it as damage limitation. “I think not losing today is important,” she said. “That’s big momentum going into tomorrow and hopefully we can win both morning and afternoon.”

The United States have not won this trophy away from home since 2015. Level after day one on European soil, they will feel that drought is genuinely under threat.

Wrap-up

So was Nordqvist brave or reckless? If Stark, Grant, Maguire and Henseleit come out fresh on Saturday and put blue back on the board, nobody mentions it again. If they don’t, it defines the week. What would you have done with those four? For more from a turbulent year in the pro game, read our report on the LIV Golf bankruptcy and its $45m creditor list.