Comment: This will be the most talked-about Solheim in history
This has been the most talked-about Solheim Cup in the history of the competition and, from Piers Morgan to Laura Davies, everyone has an opinion about what happened on the 17th green on Sunday.
While the whole thing was, for want of a better word, unfortunate, there was also an element of bad fortune in that it involved Suzann Pettersen, not only our best player but also our most headstrong, and that it happened at the 17th.
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On the very same day in the PGA Cup, the Ryder Cup for club pros, David Dixon thought he had been conceded a THREE INCH putt at the 11th. His opponent Stuart Deane claimed the hole to go back to two down.
When the incident was mentioned over the on-course radios, the US captain Allen Wronowski stepped in and put an end to the nonsense.
Europe didn’t have the luxury of a couple of holes to put things right” Unfortunately (there’s that word again) Europe didn’t have the luxury of a couple of holes to put things right.
Carin Koch tried to get Pettersen concede the hole. Pettersen, who did nothing whatsoever to break the rules and knew that Alison Lee had in other matches picked up her ball too early, couldn’t be persuaded. The timing, immediately before the singles, couldn’t have been worse.
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A final word of thanks goes to Carin who led the team brilliantly and cheerfully and threw herself into the job for two
years, travelling all over the world to build up interest for the matches and who, without fail, always picked up the phone for her column in this magazine.
The losing captain is always seen, quite ridiculously, as a bit of a failure. Koch is anything but.
Europe led 10-6 after four of the five sessions against a team who had more wins, more Majors and were significantly better if you were to go by the world rankings. If anybody was unfortunate it was her.
