By the time this post hits the unsuspecting public it will all have kicked off.

By “it”, I mean the Solheim Cup, one of the world’s greatest female sporting contests.  It’s all about Europe versus America; it’s about golf; and it’s all happening for the first time in Spain at the Andalucian course, Finca Cortesin, which handily enough, happens to have an adjacent five-star hotel where the two teams will be staying.

This is the eighteenth playing of the match with the United States leading the way with ten victories to the Europeans’ seven, but on this occasion it is Europe who are hoping to achieve three consecutive victories, something which, hitherto, has been beyond their reach.  The Americans have accomplished this feat twice.

A few months ago, when the two teams were shaping up, I boldly predicted a European win but, as is normal for me, I am now second-guessing myself and wondering was I a little too cavalier with my prognostications.  The next three, nail-biting, exhausting days will reveal all.  How can you be exhausted when you have no intention of leaving an armchair for three solid days?  Except, perhaps, to have a little nervous pacing when critical shots are being assessed and re-assessed……..and re re-assessed.  Goodness, I hope the pace of play is on the brisk side of glacial.

Mind you, from what I’ve read of the golf course – built on the site of an old vineyard – it’ll be a tough ole slog for the spectators with some dreadfully long walks from greens to tees, so perhaps the armchair is not a bad option.  The players will be transported in buggies, of course, so good luck to those who wish to follow a particular match.

I remember working at the Ryder Cup match in 2016 at Hazeltine and being struck by the fact that so many of the greens were on plateaus, resulting in the spectators rarely seeing a putt at all.  They could view the players from the knees up and that was about it.  It was a difficult course to commentate on and I recall saying to Padraig Harrington, one of Darren Clarke’s vice captains that year, that despite all the forensic planning that went into such an event, very little regard seemed to be given to the spectators.  Padraig looked at me in a mildly surprised fashion and said with no little irony, “Maureen, what on earth would make you think the fans are considered?”

I have experienced the Solheim Cup in so many different ways – but alas, never as a player.

When the Europeans won at Dalmahoy in 1992 I was playing full time and the team members were all my friends.  We were collectively incensed when it was reported at the beginning of the week that the Americans had stated that, with the possible exception of Lotte Neumann and Laura Davies, none of the other Europeans would have had a sniff of making the US team.  True or not, it was a grave error on their part and provided motivation and determination on a different level for the home side.  It was rumoured that the Europeans covered a dart board in their team room with the photos of certain American players.  I couldn’t possibly comment.  The result was a European victory, arguably one of the greatest sporting achievements in decades.

Four years later, at St Pierre, I was on duty for Radio 5 Live in the very early stages of my commentary career.  I was in the booth at the back of the final green with the inimitable Tony Adamson when the network came to him for an update on the current scores in a series of fourball matches.  As Tony opened his mouth to begin his report all the computers went down.  He never missed a beat.  Without a single note he had perfect recall of who was where on the course, who they were playing with, what the score was and what was the overall match score.  What a masterclass in broadcasting – certainly the most impressive thing I witnessed that week.

The match at Rich Harvest Farms outside Chicago saw me take on a different role – or, rather, an extra one along with the usual commentary job.  The captain, Alison Nicholas, asked me to be part of her back room team, taking on the responsibility of liaising between the players and the media.  My duties included ensuring the individual players were at the right place at the right time for various press interviews – a little trickier than it may sound.  The most challenging part was shepherding/persuading a beaten team to the media centre for a final full-team press conference.  In the aftermath of a defeat it was understandably the last thing any of us wanted.  It may or may not surprise you as to who were the bolshie ones!

The last Solheim I attended was the Gleneagles one in 2019 where Suzann Pettersen cemented her name in golfing history by holing a seven-footer on the final green for a stunning victory.  She had been one of captain Catriona Matthew’s picks – quite controversially in some quarters, as she’d hardly played in the preceding eighteen months having just had her first baby.

It was so, so memorable but also unforgettable for me for another reason.  It was the last time I worked alongside Peter Alliss, a broadcaster of legendary reputation and status.  It was the final week of enjoying entertaining evening meals in his company, discussing a range of topics on this and that.  Every time I see Suzann’s final putt played out on television I think back to where I was at that moment – sitting right beside Peter in the commentary box.

The Solheim Cup has been good to me and it’s been a big part of my life.  My golf never made the grade but I’ve been privileged and lucky to experience this special week so many times in differing roles.  Oh, and the fun you can have when you don’t have your clubs!

Now for the armchair and the Do Not Disturb sign!

Take five Swedes, two English, one Scot, one Spaniard, one Dane, one Irishwoman and one Frenchwoman and what do you get?

The 2023 European Solheim Cup team, of course, as announced by their Norwegian captain Suzann Pettersen last Tuesday.  (See above.)  These women will be taking on the might of the United States next month at Finca Cortesin, a gem of a venue on the south coast of Spain.

We won’t know the make-up of the opposition until early next week but there are a couple of things of which we can be assured.  One, they will be a formidable crew and two, they will be highly motivated to prevent a third consecutive loss to the yellow and blue of Europe in this, the eighteenth edition of the match.  Neither the sister nor I was present last time in Toledo….but there again, neither was anybody else from this side of the pond.  Covid restrictions were still in place and although the Americans had their supporters they were nowhere near as vociferous without rival fans present.  A global pandemic can encourage you to reorganise your priorities somewhat and Europe’s tight-knit bubble of players, caddies and backroom staff bonded like superglue and won by 15 points to 13.

The Americans lead overall by 10 wins to 7 but I’d argue that no match was as important as the second one, held at Dalmahoy, outside Edinburgh, in 1992 .  The Ladies’ European Tour was still a struggling, fledgling entity with hardly any players playing regularly in the States.  Unbelievably, staggeringly and against all the odds Europe won that match and that early victory was pivotal in ensuring the contest wasn’t going to be the one-sided affair many had feared.  The victorious team made the front and back pages of every paper in the land.

Little did we know that the quirky oddity of the European supporters’ singing and chanting on the 1st tee was set to grow into a much-loved, integral part of the whole match.  Orchestrated by Sue Pidgeon, a former LET staff member, and Anglie Bell, a friend and former caddy of mine, the pair composed songs for each player on each team and handed around the printouts to both sets of fans on the 1st tee.  It was an instant hit and grew with each contest.

With the increasing galleries coming to watch the women the whole 1st tee experience took on a life of its own – so much so that the Ryder Cup has now followed suit.  I want to say the first Ryder Cup match with that 1st tee ambience was in 2014 at Gleneagles.  By then Scotland had hosted and witnessed two European Solheim Cup wins and had experienced all that went on on that 1st tee and they were keen to get in on the action.

When I was in Paris in 2018, looking up at a 1st tee grandstand holding 8000 people, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck when, as one, the Europeans started their famous Icelandic clap.  And I thought immediately of Sue and Angie.  THEY started all this  – and we were there and were part of it.  Great memories.

It’s a nail-biting affair waiting to hear if you’ve been selected for any team and that was the fate of the four captain’s picks who had failed to secure an automatic spot on the team.  Of the four Suzann selected only one is a rookie – Scot Gemma Dryburgh, who follows in a long line of  Solheim Cup players from the home of golf.  I queried one of Suzann’s picks (not Gemma) with Patricia.  “It’s the captain’s pick, not yours.  Not mine,” she said.  And that phrase instantly brought a dusty memory back to the forefront of my mind.

Throughout my own career I had many such moments waiting to hear if I would get the nod from the selectors – not at the elevated level of a Solheim Cup, I hasten to add, but at various representative stages of my amateur career.

All my young life my ambition had been to play for Ireland at full international level, in other words, not just at age group levels.  Each year eight players were selected to play in the home internationals, a round robin series of matches against the other three home countries.  Each match consisted of three foursomes and six singles with two players sitting out each session.  Back then, pretty much the only route on to the team was to have a good showing in numerous competitions but, most importantly, to play in the interprovincial matches and do well there.  Handily enough, we have four provinces in Ireland and the format was identical to the home internationals, so it was a great dress rehearsal for the big stage.

I made my debut for my province at the age of 15 so I did feel I was on the right track.  At 18 I left Ireland for a scholarship in the US so was no longer at home playing in the recognised events.  I did, however, have to send back all the results of my college events in which I was making a decent showing.  When I arrived back after my first six months away I was much improved and playing well, but had missed all of the home-based events.

In those days, the selectors didn’t write to you or ring you up to tell you if you’d made the team – they put the team in the paper.  Hard to believe, but there I was, rushing each day to the shop before heading off to practise.  Finally, there it was – the team to represent Ulster, blah, blah – in alphabetical order………..Ann McLean, Patricia Madill, Lilian Malone……….  Whaaaattttt????

I read it and re-read it.  Mum and Dad read it and re-read it.  Patricia???  Was it a misprint?  Did they mean Maureen?  Ah, wait.  There are only SEVEN names.  That’s it.  Mine must have been left out in error.  Phew!  Someone will surely ring up.

Meanwhile, where was the Madill who had just been awarded her interprovincial cap?  Why, lying in bed reading Shoot football magazine without a care in the world and not even the owner of one single bag of practice balls!  The next day Patricia received her letter of selection with instructions re the uniform, the travelling, the hotel and the venue.  No one ever did ring up for me.  And yes, that year they had decided to take only seven players to save on the costs.

Looking back, it must have been a nightmare of a scenario for our parents to navigate.  They were thrilled and delighted for Patricia, of course, but had to deal with a distraught younger daughter who suddenly found she wasn’t even considered the best player in her own family!

That was when Dad said to me you just had to make it impossible for selectors not to pick you and there were echoes of that in Patricia’s comment re the captain’s picks.

For the record, I seem to remember Patricia performed well in the interprovincials and I’m happy to report that I managed to get back on the Ulster team the following year.

One month after that I did make my debut at full international level.

And Patricia still doesn’t own a bag of practice balls.

My step count barely registered on my phone over last Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  In fact, you’d be forgiven for thinking it wasn’t working at all.  It peaked (or troughed) on Monday at a massive 350 steps – and who knew sitting could be so exhausting that it’s taken me the rest of the week to recover?  Actually, I wasn’t just sitting – I was immersed in every putt, chip and swing of the two teams vying to win the 17th edition of the Solheim Cup, played at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio.  All the shouting at the television was worth it in the end, however, as Europe battled to a 15-13 victory to win for only the second time on American soil.

Catriona Matthew has now achieved God-like status for being the first European captain to win successive matches and, so far at any rate, she has sensibly declined to lead the side for a third term.

This was a match that Europe had no right to win.  It’s notoriously difficult to win on foreign soil in normal times and the visiting side were without their friends, families and faithful Solheim Cup supporters because of ever present travel restrictions regarding the States.  Perhaps it made the small number of Europeans an even more cohesive unit, if that were possible, but there’s no doubt the Americans will go away scratching their heads and wondering what kind of sorcery goes on in European team rooms at Ryder and Solheim Cups.

I mean, blending and moulding  EIGHT different nationalities (ten, if you count the captain and assistant captains) should be akin to solving a fiendish sudoku but Europe seemingly have the key to unlocking these mysteries. The Americans will be sick to death of hearing about European team spirit and suggestions that there is a magic formula that they are lacking.  There’s one sure thing, though – the more they try to come up with their own “magic formula” for success the more elusive it’ll become.

You will forgive me for confirming there was much joy in this household over Leona Maguire’s spellbinding display and seemingly bottomless well of grit and resolve into which she dipped to enable yet another clutch putt to find the bottom of the hole.  We have waited 31 years to have an Irish player in the blue and gold colours of Europe in the Solheim Cup and it certainly proved worth the wait.  Just imagine – four and a half points out of five, a feat never before achieved by a European rookie.  (Caroline Hedwall won all five of her matches in Colorado in 2013, on her second appearance.)

At this point I would like to sound a note of appreciation for everyone in the country who has ever had anything to do with Irish golf – and girls’ golf in particular.  By that I mean all the volunteers who have run junior sections at their clubs;  the parents who have criss-crossed the country taking their little ones to club matches, scratch cups and the like;  and the governing body who have grown into a tour de force in delivering world-class coaching programmes.  Over the decades great Irish players have been nurtured, winning first at home, then abroad.  Eventually these class individuals were backed up by strength in depth and team victories on the international stage appeared.  After that it was forays into college golf in America, then the Ladies’ European Tour, then the LPGA and now Leona has taken us all to new heights.  All along the way there have been inspiring people and players that sowed a seed of ambition for the next generation and so it has gone on.

I can’t help but think back to my own early days at Portstewart and Portrush and the junior sessions run by one of the members, Dorothy Glendinning.  It was her encouragement to me to swing at a daisy with my 9-iron and not spend the WHOLE time making daisy chains that created a spark in me for this sport that lives on to this day.  And, of course, we will never know the sheer grind of the thousands of hours put in by Leona herself to bring her to this point, but, as well as paying tribute to her, I want to pay tribute to generations of people who have given time and effort to the game they love, with no thought of reward.

Leona stands on the shoulders of many, many people which is one of the reasons the entire country is bursting with collective pride in her accomplishments.

I don’t suppose that for Catriona Matthew anything could surpass captaining the Europeans to victory last time out in her home country but this must surely come awfully close.  It’s also possibly the first time ever that women’s golf has gone head to head over a similar time frame with an important men’s golf event and merited the lion’s share of the attention.  In case it escaped your notice, the culmination of the PGA Tour season took place with the final event of the play-offs resulting in Patrick Cantlay pocketing $15 million.  Honestly, I hardly noticed, so captivating, so all-encompassing was the Solheim Cup – and that’s even allowing for the poor television production from the American host broadcasters.

Two talented, evenly-matched teams were showcased at The Inverness Club; the spotlight settled on the Europeans at the end of three glorious days; and there, centre stage, drinking it all in, head and shoulders above all the rest, was Leona Maguire.

Simply the best.

Golf, like life, moves on apace but the blog makes no apologies for giving top billing (twice) to Europe’s stunning, stupendous, scintillating Solheim victory.  Maureen and I are still exhausted (and I’m ashamed to say I’ve yet to see a shot hit in anger by teen tennis sensation Emma Raducanu, who is taking the US Open by storm with an insouciance and joie de vivre that would impress Leona Maguire).

Maguire, the pride of Ballyconnell and Slieve Russell in county Cavan, was the undoubted star of a European team that shone so brightly that they eclipsed the much vaunted Americans, world No 1 Nellie Korda, her sister Jessica, Lexi Thompson, Lizette Salas and all – and kept the ever enthusiastic, would be noisy Toledo fans pretty quiet.  The chants of “USA, USA” sounded few and far between and were never sustained, smacking more and more of desperation as the Europeans refused to crumble.

It was tight and tense the longer the singles went on but Matilda Castren, a rookie from Finland (like Maguire the first from her country to make the team) saw off Salas with a seemingly nerveless putt to win on the last and in the anchor match Emily Pedersen, a Dane whose Solheim (and golfing) journey of redemption deserves a book of its own, beat Danielle Kang by one hole (having clinched Europe’s win when she went three up with three to play).

This is as good – or bad – a place as any to have my habitual rant about the inequity of the defending champions being given a half point start.  To retain the trophy they’d won at Gleneagles, Europe needed to reach 14 points; to win the USA needed 14 1/2.  And so, in reality, for their own satisfaction, did the Europeans.  It’ll be happening again at Whistling Straits later this month when Europe defend the Ryder Cup they won in such style in Paris in 2018.  That’s three years ago, for goodness sake.  And even if it were the usual two, why? oh why? does a side deserve a start?  It doesn’t make sense.  Historical?  It’s a tradition that should be history.  Ditched.  Done away with once and for all.  It deserves a bad rap.  Cue Bubba!

The great thing about the Solheim Cup and the Ryder Cup nowadays is that you have to win it, you don’t get given it.  There’s no just turning up and walking away with the trophy.  It’s a proper contest, a match between equals, always liable to be close.  Every now and again a team runs away with it but mostly it’s nip and tuck – as it turned out to be at the Inverness Club, with 16 of the 28 matches (by my count) going to the last hole.  Nerves are going to be shredded, players (and fans) emotionally exhausted by the end.

The bottom line is that losing stinks.  Winning is so much more fun.

Let’s hope that Padraig Harrington, who’ll be finalising his Ryder Cup team after this week’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, has players who putt as well in Wisconsin as Maguire and her teammates did in Toledo.  They were led impeccably by Catriona Matthew, the lowkey, legendary Scot from North Berwick who inspires with a quiet authority and has the utmost respect of every single player.  Also, in a humorous nod to the venue’s roots, the Europeans had a cheeky Loch Ness monster on the bottom of their golf bags….One up from the start, surely.

Matthew paired the rookie Maguire (in reality a mature 26-year old with a stellar college career at Duke behind her) with the sometimes tempestuous Englishwoman Mel Reid, a lover of the free-flowing fist pump.  They didn’t know each other at all beforehand but what looked initially like an odd couple proved a marriage made in heaven and they gelled beautifully, winning three of their four matches together and  halving the other.  Reid restrained her celebrations, leaving most of the fierce fist pumps to her more naturally stoic partner, who hardly missed a putt over the three days.

So impressive was Maguire that musician Sam Harrop (@sam_golf on Twitter), described by The Times as “golf’s premier parodist”, has written an ode about her already.  It’s quite brilliant and includes lines like “A debut from the Hall of Fame…Golf’s an oyster and we’ve found a pearl” but the rhyme de resistance has to be:  “She’s from county Ca-van (American pronunciation), she’s not gonna tan…”  Classic.

It cracked me up because I remember seeing Leona and her twin sister Lisa at the Junior Solheim in America and knew immediately who they were because they had little milk bottle legs, white as white in amongst the tanned pins of their teammates.  The DWD (dog-walking dermatologist) tells me that most of us Irish have such pale skin to help us absorb as much vitamin D as possible from our (normally) watery sunshine.  Forgive me if I haven’t quite grasped the science, we were playing bridge at the time and I was losing tricks hands over fist.

The Solheim Cup shopping list.  It’s not likely to change for the Ryder Cup.

Finally, congratulations to Co. Cavan on winning the AIG Men’s Jimmy Bruen Shield for the first time, defeating Gowran Park at Shandon Park in Belfast.  Conor O’Reilly, a member of the winning team, said, “It means so much to our club.  We’re 128 years old and it was our first All-Ireland final.

“It’s been a great week for golf in Cavan.  Leona doesn’t have a Jimmy Bruen though!”