Charley Hull ready to lead Europe's Solheim Cup tilt in front of hostile American crowds
At least Europe still has faith in England on one issue. Annika Sorenstam, the female game’s greatest ever player, is relying on the St George Cross to fly so proudly at the 15th Solheim Cup and inspire a third victory in four matches over the US.
Europe are huge underdogs but they are snarling in true Ryder Cup fashion. Record crowds of more than 25,000 a day are expected at the Des Moines Country Club – starting for this morning’s foursomes - and as last September’s Ryder Cup in Chicago higlighted, the mid-west fans are not slow in coming forward.
But Sorenstam is unperturbed about fronting up to the Stars and Stripes and here, in the words of the young, and blissfully unbothered, Charley Hull, is exactly the reason why.
The last time the Kettering product played in the Solheim Cup on away soil, she happened to be only 17 and the youngest ever player. Europe won and Hull reveled in the hostility.
“I like getting booed on the first tee,” Hull said. “I actually prefer it to having the crowd cheering me on. That’s why I like the Solheim best when it’s in America. I like having the crowd against me and being the underdog. It helps to get me going, to go out there and show them we can play a bit.”
Ian Poulter would be proud. They are both members and ambassadors of Woburn and he could not contain his admiration when the teenager accounted for Paula Creamer 5&4 in the singles. “She showed show so much steel and so much class,” he said. “She summed up that Europe ethos - that we shall not be beat.”
Of course, Hull was to appear in unhappier Solheim times and play a cameo role in the controversy of 2015, when Suzann Pettersen, her fourballs partner, called up 20-year-old rookie Allison Lee for scooping up a 16-inch putt which had not officially been conceded.
That piece of rank etiquette triggered not only game-wide disgust but, more pertinently, a US fightback from 10-6 down to win 14 ½-131/2. Pettersen pulled out of this match with a back injury on Wednesday – to be replaced by the veteran Scot Catriona Matthew - but the discomfort still bites. It is a part of the reason why the bookmakers are classing the US as overwhelming favourites.
Maybe they are but it should be remembered that if they had been beaten in Germany – which they surely would have been but for Pettersen ridiculously handing away the motivation – then Europe would be looking at winning four on the trot.
Granted, there is sizeable gulf in the rankings average between these two teams, and Pettersen’s withdrawal is a huge blow, but rather like the male version, all of that can so easily go out the team-room window. Sorenstam will definitely not lack in the inspirational stakes.
But then, her counterpart Juli Inkster – a seven-time major-winning legend, herself - played it masterfully in stoking the US rage at St Leon-Rot into that Medinah-like resurrection from the ashes two years ago. However, Sorenstam will have been constantly reminding her girls that the opposition were almost out on the ropes be.
There is no absolutely reason why the blue-and-gold- brigade cannot pull off another famous victory and, certainly, the expected vocal throngs will be less of a problem now that Pettersen is only part of background crew and not on centre stage. They will yell “U.S.A, U.S.A” over and over, and, yes, there might even be the occasional unsubtle heckle. But that cannot and will not be any excuse.
Jodi Ewart Shadoff, one of five English in the team, was a member of the Colorado crew and remembers what it was like.
“It's massive,” she said. “It's literally like no other experience you'll ever have, the nerves on the first tee. You know, back in 2013, I didn't even think I could get the ball on the tee I was shaking so much. But everybody's been in pressure situations, individually and as a team. So hopefully the rookies can draw on that because you need to. It will be fun.”
And American have had their own troubles. Jessica Korda was forced to scratch with an arm injury and Inkster was obliged to send out a bleated call to the snubbed Paula Creamer. She is a Solheim veteran and another who understands that the match rarely obeys form. Heroine or villainess is all up for grabs.
