Two weeks today the 1st tee at the glorious Gleneagles will be surrounded by thousands of chanting, singing, good-natured and humorous golf fans, ready to take on and be part of the rollercoaster that is the Solheim Cup.  This will be the 16th meeting of the best female golfers from the continents of Europe and the USA, with the latter having won ten of those matches and the Europeans half that number.

Those of us who support the blue and yellow contingent have become accustomed to examining the team sheets and inwardly shuddering, telling ourselves bravely that golf isn’t played on paper, but on grass.  It’s been one way of dealing with the significant talent on display for the United States and, you know what, it’s true!  Golf is not played on paper!  It’s been a thrill and a privilege to witness a number of the European wins when undoubted underdogs and the scintillating golf produced by both teams under the severest pressure is sport at its very best.

As I write, the only place the 2019 teams are to be found IS on paper, finalised in the last few days.  And so, the studying has begun and this time it looks different, very, very different.

Let’s take the Americans first.  They’ve appointed Juli Inkster, a wily campaigner if ever there was one, as captain for the third consecutive match.  She is undefeated so the US is bidding for a hatrick of wins.  Juli was presented with ten of her twelve team members who qualified automatically, eight from a two-year rolling Solheim Cup points list, and two from the world rankings list.  Two captain’s picks were in her gift.

I wonder what she was thinking as she studied those ten names?  Here they are:-  Marina Alex; Brittany Altomare; Danielle Kang; Megan Khang; Jessica Korda; Nelly Korda; Annie Park; Lizette Salas; Lexi Thompson and Angel Yin.  Hardly household names over here and nothing to strike fear into opponents’ hearts when you consider the US teams of the past.

Inkster has inherited five rookies.  (Cautionary note to self:  Europe had six rookies when they won for the one and only time on American soil in Colorado in 2013.)  She has only two major winners in this line-up, Thompson and Kang with one apiece.  Her five non-rookies muster nine Solheim Cup teams between them, but three of them have only one appearance apiece and those were all in the US.  So, only two of the ten have played a Solheim Cup in Europe.  Amazingly, it gets worse (or better, depending on your point of view).  Three of these ten have not yet won a golf tournament on any main tour.

I remember as if it were yesterday how dismissive the Americans were of the make-up of the European team at Dalmahoy in 1992.  Who was Catrin Nilsmark?  They’d never heard of her and at that time she hadn’t even won a tournament!  (Next cautionary note to self:  this non-tournament winner was equal to the pressurised task of holing the winning putt.)

So, changed times.  This is not the usual heavyweight American side dripping with majors and with tournament victories being commonplace.  That is undoubtedly due to the dominance of the Asian players on the LPGA.  This side is light on experience – of Solheim Cups and yes, even of winning.  This is not the roster we have become accustomed to facing.  Paula Creamer, Michelle Wie, Brittany Lincicome, Brittany Lang and the dreaded Cristie Kerr are all missing for one reason or another, so Juli had no option with her two picks but to reach into the pool of experience and pluck out Stacy Lewis and Morgan Pressel.

Lewis is a veteran of four matches and Pressel five, so, phew, right there that doubles up the number of Solheim Cup appearances the 2019 team can boast.  And the pair have played five times in Europe in what can often be a hostile away environment.  Pressel has one major to her name and Lewis has two so that more than doubles the team’s total, bringing it up to five – still two short of Juli Inkster’s own personal tally.

From the captain’s point of view one of the most worrying aspects of her picks was that she didn’t feel she could pick players in form – that would have given her yet more rookies and she needed to balance out her team as best she could.  In 2019 Pressel has played in nineteen events, missing the cut eight times, including six out of her last eight tournaments.  The bright spark was a fourth place finish in the AIG Women’s British Open – that must have been like water to a woman in the desert for Inkster, never mind Pressel.

Lewis, meanwhile is juggling being a new Mum but has played a full schedule this year after taking the second half of 2018 off.  She has played seventeen times, missing the cut on seven occasions, including in three out of her last four events.  But, remember, she is a former world No 1.  However, safe to say Inkster’s picks are not exactly in form – at the time of writing……

And so to Europe, led in Scotland by Catriona Matthew, that country’s most successful female golfer.  A major winner herself, veteran campaigner of nine Solheim Cups, Matthew is quiet, humble, ultra competitive – and astute.  She asked Laura Davies to be one of her assistant captains, an instant asset to the backroom team, alongside Kathryn Imrie and Mel Reid.  Laura has played in twelve Cup matches and is the event’s leading points scorer.  She has been the lynchpin of the Ladies’ European Tour for 30 years and to have that expertise and knowledge on hand for her team could well be a masterstroke.

Europe has three rookies on the team this year:  France’s Celine Boutier, England’s Bronte Law and Anne van Dam from the Netherlands.  Boutier and Law have both won on the LPGA this year and Anne van Dam has four wins under her belt, three in the last thirteen months.  All proven winners.

The other nine players to tee it up have played a whopping 31 Solheim Cups between them and have three major winners in their ranks, Georgia Hall with one and Anna Nordqvist and Suzann Pettersen with two apiece.

England is well represented with two other players joining Law and Hall, who has been showing some good form of late.  Charley Hull, amazingly, is teeing it up in her fourth Cup match at the tender age of 23.  She has already won Stateside and has also recorded a victory in the United Arab Emirates earlier in the year;  Jodi Ewart Shadoff, one of Catriona’s four picks, will surely relish her third appearance in the blue and yellow of Europe, particularly as this will be her first home match.  The only player on the side yet to win, Ewart Shadow has recorded four top tens this year despite being hampered by a niggling back injury.  She had a small procedure a couple of weeks ago and is now pain free.  That may be a slight injury concern for the Europeans but Catriona has that covered by inviting Reid to be one of the vice-captains.   She will have her game ready to go, if needed.

It would be hard to envisage a European team without a significant Spanish input and the female equivalent of Seve is surely Carlota Ciganda.  A multiple winner on the LPGA, undefeated in Solheim Cup singles, she has that intensity that can inspire her teammates to great heights.  The quieter but no less intense Azahara Munoz is playing in her fourth match after narrowly missing out last time around.  Another European winner in America, Munoz has enjoyed an incredibly consistent season in the US with nine top ten finishes, two of those being in majors.

What team would not fight and claw to have Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist playing for them?  Who will forget the top singles match she played last time out against Lexi Thompson?  Four up at one point on the American, Nordqvist was hit with a barrage of birdies and better that saw Lexi eight under for a stretch of seven holes and 1 up playing the last.  Anna’s response?  A flawless 8-iron for a gimme to halve the match.  Class in every way.

Fellow Swede Caroline Hedwall will be playing in her fourth Solheim Cup and this is the first time that she has played her way into one of the automatic spots.  With nine professional wins to her name she also has the distinction of being the only player to score five points out of five in a Solheim Cup match.  I was there in Colorado to see it.

Another gearing up for her fourth encounter with the Americans is Caroline Masson of Germany and she, too, carries the confidence from winning on the LPGA.  Experience has brought a calmness and maturity to her game and a recent top ten in Canada will reinforce her self-belief.

Perhaps one of Matthew’s most surprising moves was the naming of Norway’s Pettersen to the side despite only having played one individual 72-hole tournament in almost eighteen months because of the birth of her son last year.  By the time Gleneagles rolls around she will have added two more tournaments to that tally and as she approaches her ninth match she promises that the fire in her belly is back.

This is the first European side I can remember that has every member playing predominantly in the US.  They have all left their home countries to ply their trade; they are all battle hardened; and eleven of them have won on the toughest tour in the world.  They have home support, they have a mix of exciting new talent and experience – and Europe have never lost a Solheim Cup in Scotland, winning in both 1998 at Dalmahoy and Loch Lomond in 2000.

It all looks very, very promising on paper with two weeks to go.  But, remember, as we know only too well, this match isn’t played on paper.  It’s played on grass.

I was reading something the other day and it made me realise that I haven’t a clue, couldn’t even hazard a guess, as to how many courses I’ve played in a long and largely undistinguished golfing life.  Well, that’s not quite true, a lot of the courses and some of the playing partners have been distinguished in the extreme, so perhaps there’s distinction by association….

Anyway, the person who wrote the piece had just chalked up his 750th course and it transpired that there were quite a few of his readers who were galloping towards 1500 and more.  They all seemed to have meticulously documented their rounds, how they’d played, who they’d played with, what the weather was like, how many pitchmarks they’d repaired, the works.  Blimey, how casual had I been!   I used to collect the scorecards, intending to file them neatly but eventually I accepted the inevitable and got rid of all but a few.  There are enough boxes of photographs to sort without adding to the clutter and guilt mountain.

The first course I played will have been the Old Course at Portstewart, the wee course, which is still going and is really the sort of place you should play wearing a helmet.  The first few and last few holes are squeezed into a narrow strip of land between the sea and the main road into town from Portrush and when you’re a beginner or an occasional player, you soon learn what Fore! means and how to shout it loudly and duck quickly.  You wouldn’t be allowed to build it now.

The most recent course I’ve played is Whittington Heath, where, after nine holes, I thought I might be in with a chance of winning the Tripp Trophy.  Who knows where the decent scoring came from?   My training consisted of loading several sacks of soil into the boot of the car to take to the tip post golf.  I must have engaged what passes for my core effectively enough because I was able to walk and swing the next morning.  Perhaps the low expectations helped.  The back nine, as the temperature rose into the highs 20s centigrade, not ideal for someone brought up on Ireland’s windswept north Atlantic coast, saw my scoring rise too.  Triples and doubles proliferated and thoughts of glory evaporated.  Ah well, gallons of tea and an egg mayo sarnie restored what passes for my equilibrium.

I went to the tip via a posh dress shop that I only dare visit during the sales and came away empty-handed, with my credit card and nails intact.  The card survived the rest of the day ok but the nails suffered soil and rubble damage because I’d forgotten to take the gardening gloves with me and dumping all those bags was not a white collar job.  I was revived with tea, wine and chat at the in-laws round the corner – and came away fortified with home-grown string beans and, even better, the best raspberries I’ve had for years.  Janet and David haven’t been wasting their time on the allotment.

Moving on to proper golf, it’s lovely to see that Rory, weighed down with dollars and kudos after his victory at East Lake last week, is playing at Crans-sur-Sierre, giving the Omega European Masters an extra sprinkle of stardust.  I always think of Crans as a magical place.  It was one of Dai’s and my favourite venues – even though I could never quite afford one of the Max Mara coats I coveted.  Rory is there with his wife Erica and her parents and that’s just perfect; it’s that sort of place.  The golf course is right in the middle of things, so if you’re there with a non-golfer, you have no need to worry about them – unless they’ve got your credit card.

Rory, who’s got his sights set on overtaking Brooks Koepka as world No 1, will be playing in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth towards the end of next month and has also signed up for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship the following week.  If you get a chance to see him play in the flesh, do; he’s a special talent. (Which reminds me, I should really be heading up the road to Derby to watch Steve Smith bat for Australia.  He’s another one of a kind.  Ben Stokes, I hope, is having the week off.)

Keeping track of what golf’s on where is a full-time job and hard for a part-timer like me.  Did you know, for instance, that the Astor Trophy is taking place in Canada as I write?   It’s played every four years and when Maureen played in it, it was called the Commonwealth Trophy but that changed and now GB has become GB and I and they’re taking on Canada, Australia (the defending champions), New Zealand and South Africa at Royal Colwood GC in Victoria, British Columbia.  Olivia Mehaffey, Lily May Humphreys, Emily Toy and Alice Hewson sat out the first day but will be in action (foursomes and singles) from now on.  They’re playing South Africa first and I eventually found some details (via randa.org) on something called golfcanada.bluegolf.com.  As for the state of all parties, well, I’m sure I’ll work it out, given time.  It seems to be a thing of the past to start with the day’s results and work from there….

Over in Oregon, many of the world’s best women professionals are playing in the Cambia Portland Classic at Columbia Edgewater Country Club.   A lot of the players are trying to hone their games for the Solheim Cup at Gleneagles next month, including Marina Alex, the defending champion and Suzann Pettersen, whose golf disappeared off the radar after she gave birth to her son more than a year ago.  The Norwegian was champion in Portland in 2013 and 2011, so the vibes should be good.

Closer to home – and gleaming at the top of the page – there’s the Jacques Leglise Trophy (GB and I under-18 boys v Europe) at Aldeburgh Golf Club and the oldish codgers (50 and over) of the Staysure Tour are contesting the Sinclair Invitational at Hanbury Manor Marriott Hotel and Country Club in Hertfordshire, where Joakim Haeggman, the first Swede to play in the Ryder Cup – as one of Bernard Gallacher’s picks at The Belfry in 1993 – is making his senior debut after turning 50 a couple of days ago.

He hasn’t played competitively for several  years and spent time as a sales rep for John Deere in Sweden but decided he’d like to have another go at competitive golf and has been in training since last November.   “It’s great to see everyone again and have a chat,” he said.  “I think the Staysure Tour will offer me a lot of enjoyment, a chance to play golf and hopefully I’ll be able to make a living out of doing this.  I’ve said to myself I’ll play this year and then at least a couple more years, so we’ll see where I get to.”

Good luck Joakim.  Play well.