Photo: © David Cannon/Getty Images Beth Daniel, assistant Captain of the USA passes the trophy to Nicole Castrale of the USA during the closing ceremony of the Solheim Cup.

But in the end the American squad gave the Europeans the biggest trashing in the singles with their 8 win, 2 loss, two halve day. The 9 points the Americans won was the biggest trashing since 1996 when the USA won 10 to 2 in Wales.

Leading the way for team American was Morgan Pressel, who beat former number one Annika Sorenstam 2 & 1. Another big American win was Stacy Prammanasudh taking down the McDonald's LPGA Champion Suzann Pettersen 2 up and Pat Hurst handing Sophie Gustafson a 2 & 1 loss. About the only happy singles matches for the Europeans was Catriona Matthew beating Laura Diaz 3 & 2 and Laura Davies beating Brittany Lincicome 4 & 3.

As for my trip to Sweden it was a very special experience. When I arrived and talked with Ron Sirak of Golf World magazine, he said that when he came here in 2003 he made sure not to turn his Sweden's Kroner's into dollars because he knew that he would be coming back. He did and this time he spent a week experiencing Sweden and said that he had a great time. I feel the same way, not only is the countryside breathtaking, but the people are a great breed of friendly people. In a way it was like by first trip to Australia, I couldn't wait to go back down under and I am looking forward to a return to Sweden. It will be neat to spend a week in the future playing golf and seeing more of the sites of this great country.

As for American women's golf, which just a couple of years ago we were writing an obituary about, it seems as strong as it ever has been. With young stars like Stacy Prammanasudh, Morgan Pressel, Brittany Lincicome, Nicole Castrale, Paula Creamer, Cristie Kerr and Natalie Gulbis things look great for many years to come and I wonder what the future of the Solheim Cup will be? Unfortunley I don't see the same for European golf. I don't see any great young stars coming down the pipe in Europe, there could easily be a big drought in the next couple of years. In a way this could be the time for the powers to be finding a way of getting players like Lorena Ochoa and Karrie Webb involved in these matches. It would be easy to say, let's give Europe the rest of the world but with Korean golf being so strong that may be too much for the American's. Still it be nice to figure out a way to get more players from around the world involved in this match and it's too bad that Ochoa, Webb and Se Ri Pak have been left out.

I also am looking forward to 2009, it will be interesting to see how much the Solheim Cup will grow when it's next played at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill, just outside of Chicago.

Sal Johnson

HALMSTAD, Sweden., September 15 - As I was getting to sleep about midnight last night our hotel started to rock and roll as the winds whipped up to 60 miles an hour. My room is on the 10th floor and got the brunt of the winds. At about 3am I heard a pop on my window, got up and some poor bird crashed into the window and with the wind beating very powerfully the bird was not strong enough to escape. It took him a couple of minutes and he finally preyed himself off the window and hopefully flew off to safety. I should of know right there that the wind would play havoc to Saturdays play.

When I left for the course at about 6:30, it was still very windy and when we got to the course noticed the damage with down branches and the possibility for hurting players or spectators. Thank goodness the winds subsided but the two hour delay caused the fourball matches not to be finished.

In the morning foursomes again the results during the halfway point changed when the matches ended. An example of this was the match between Iben Tinning and Bettina Hauert against Pat Hurst and Angela Stanford. When the team of Tinning and Hauert made birdie at 9, it looked like they had all of the momentum. Hauert is know more for here shark viewing and snowboarding instead of her golf, but she showed a lot of excitement in getting the crowd going. But after the pair made birdie at 9 to take a 1 up lead, things drastically changed. Hurst and Stanford won six of the next seven holes and made a close match into a 4 & 2 victory. This wasn't the only big change, after the 12th hole, Annika Sorenstam and Catriona Matthew had a 5 up lead over Nicole Castrale and Cristie Kerr, but the American squad had some final hole fireworks. They birdied four of the next five holes and by the time the match got to 18, the European Tour only had a 1 up lead. On the 18th, Castrale had a six-footer to halve the match, missing it and watch Matthew make a three-footer to win the match.

In the Juli Inster/Paula Creamer match against Sophie Gustafson and Suzanne Pettersen, the Americans had a one up lead after 10 only to see it lost when Gustafson made a four-foot birdie putt on 18 for a 1 up victory for the Europeans. In the Sherri Steinhauer/Laura Diaz match against Maria Hjorth and Gwladys Nocera, the American's had a 1 up lead after ten but weren't able to hold on. In the end, Steinhauer was just 3-feet away on 18 with a chance to win, only to miss as that match was halved.

Photo: © Scott Halleran/Getty Images Sophie Gustafson of the European Team celebrates her birdie putt on the 18th hole to halve her match with Juli Inkster/Paula Creamer of the U.S. during the morning foursome matches.

So the American's won a match along with the Europeans, with two matches halved, so going into the afternoon, the American's had a 6½ to 5½ lead. Now something that wasn't a part of the matches happened unfortunely after Steinhauer missed her putt at 18. Dottie Pepper had some comments that shouldn't of made air. After the putt, Pepper was counted down to a commercial and when the producer got to zero in the count, Pepper felt they were in commercial, she uttered the words to her fellow Golf Channel colleagues, "Choking freaking dogs." Unfortunely in the States the words got over the air which is an embarrassment to not only Golf Channel but Dottie. When American captain Betsy King was asked to comment on Pepper's words, she said that she was too busy with the Solheim Cup to worry about it.

In an email to GolfObserver from Don McGuire, senior vice president of programming for the Golf Channel, he said an error was made and that "Dottie is a fiery competitor and we pay her to be that way. Her comments were not intended for general consumption, but for her colleagues in the booth. We definitely let her down technically in allowing that feed go out over our air."

Again, this is a learning process for the Golf Channel. The general public loves Pepper for her frank comments but she has to learn to gain the experience and maturity of a Judy Rankin. It's obvious that the Golf Channel doesn't use a Satellite bird killer like the networks use to make sure that things like this doesn't happen, so Pepper and the rest of the Golf Channel announcers have to be careful in commercials for comments that are not for general consumption.

Afternoon matches:

With the morning delay it meant that the afternoon four-balls couldn't be finished. Again we have to wonder if the tide will change like the other matches will but in three of the matches the Europeans have a 1 up lead with one of the matches all square.

Unfortunely with this delay that matches will be continued at 7am Swedish time (1am eastcoast time). After that the afternoon singles will take place with Laura Diaz and Catriona Matthew teeing off first. The European's have put most of their experience in the first matches, with Linda Wessberg facing Cristie Kerr in the second to last match and Gwladys Nocera/ Natalie Gulbis facing off in the last pairing. In looking at the 12 matches the one that seems to be the best is 19-year-old Morgan Pressel facing veteran Annika Sorenstam.

Now in the history of the Solheim Cup the American's have won 59% of the singles matches and in looking at the match ups look again to be the favorites. So it will be important for the Europeans to maintain their three match lead in those delayed four-ball matches. If they can win three of the four and have a 7½ to 8½ maybe, just maybe they will have a chance. But if they find themselves either tied or behind I feel the matches will be lost, so these morning four-balls could spell the difference between victory and defeat.

Sal Johnson

Everything goes America's way after day one

The 2007 Solheim Cup

September 14th, 2007

By SAL JOHNSON
Publisher, GOLFOBSERVER
E-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com

Friday Afternoon's items:

HALMSTAD, Sweden., September 14 - As I watch the final matches end on Friday, the first thoughts has to be on getting dinner before any thoughts on what is going to happen in the Solheim Cup. In America if's very easy, go find a nice steak house for a Sirloin with a big bake potato, but here in Sweden it's a bit of an adventure.

The first night I was here, I ate at the hotel and the special of the evening was moose stew, which sounded different and was really good. I couldn't tell the difference between the Moose stew and the Irish Stew that I had last week at the European Club in Dublin, both are great experiences. Last night I ate in a restaurant in Halmstad and the special of the day was venison, which I have had before so it wasn't a big gamble. Today in the press room it was Swedish lasagna and chicken. Wonder if I can get some Swedish meatballs tonight?

Tonight I have to think that Betsy King and her girls will be eating very good. With a 4½ to 3½ lead after the first day of matches, King's team goes into the weekend as the first America team to lead after the first day since Judy Rankin's team did it in 1998, four matches ago. Going into Friday's matches you had to think that any kind of lead was perfect for the American team and this is a great start.

Now the American team had a very good day of golf under conditions that was drastically different all day long. Every variation of weather hit Halmstad Golf Club today, expect for snow. At the start of the morning foursomes it was very cold, heavy jackets and gloves were the norm. It looked like it took a while for all the players to get going a lot of putts were missed and shots were easily missed. Once it got warmer, cold rain hit with some heavy stuff coming toward the end of the matches. It continued during the start of the afternoon four-balls but about 3pm the skies lighten up and the sunshine burst onto the scene. But the sunshine didn't end the day, heavy rain hit when the final group played the final hole.

Photo: © Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images Laura Davies after chipping in at 16 which helped her and partner Trish Johnson halve their match with Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel.

As for the matches, the American's ended a magical day winning three matches, halving three and losing just twice. In the afternoon, the European team got off to a great start with a 4 & 2 victory by Catriona Matthew and Iben Tinning over Pat Hurst and Brittany Lincicome. For Hurst it was a tough day as she halved her morning match with Cristie Kerr. Now for a while the American's were leading all four matches and it looked like an American white wash, with Nicole Castrale and Cristie Kerr beating Sophie Gustafson and Gwladys Nocera pretty easily 3 & 2. This left the 2nd match with Angela Stanford and Stacy Prammanasudh on the way to beating Annika Sorenstam and Maria Hjorth, until the European team got things together starting with an eagle on 10 and then squaring the match on 18 when Sorenstam made a great 8-footer for par and the halve.

This left the final match with Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel against Trish Johnson and Laura Davies. Now this was a pairing of youth against experience as Johnson and Davies had a combine age of 84, the oldest pairing in Solheim history against the combine age of 40 for Pressel and Creamer made them the youngest pairing ever. Still in the end the experience of Davies showed on the 16th hole when she pulled off a miracle par which got the match squared and then halving the last two holes to get a halve out of the match.

Many are going to question European captain Helen Alfredsson's decision to make the Halmstad long and hard. With cold, wet weather the course played even tougher and looked like the advantage was thrown to the American squad. Still we will have to wait and see if Alfredsson will realize that a basic shootout would be more of an advantage for her team, especially with the local crowd in there corner. Again the weather is going to be tough again on Saturday as more wind is predicated with periods of heavy rain.

In looking at the Saturday foursomes pairings, Alfredsson is sitting out Friday's hero Laura Davies and will play Bettina Hauert for the first time. That leaves her with just Linda Wessberg to play in the afternoon. As for the American squad, Betsy King has played everyone and in looking at the pairings has put out her big guns as she looks to increase her lead going into Sunday's single.

Friday Morning's items:

HALMSTAD, Sweden., September 14 - I didn't decide to come over to Sweden until last month, thus I was very lucky to get a hotel room. I was lucky enough to get a modern Quality Inn just outside of town that is 12 stories tall and since I am on the 10th floor it provides a million dollar view of the city, the Kattegat Strait and Denmark. Now this may sound like a stretch but it's as great a view in the early morning as from the 18th tee at Kapalua, looking over the blue Pacific with Molokai and Lanai.

But there is a big difference between the two and even though it was nice and sunny on Wednesday and Thursday in Sweden things were totally different on Friday morning. Things look very ominous as the sun was trying to come up and peak through the clouds. The skies were grey with the sun never appearing. On top of that it was very cold, in a way it and all of Sweden reminds me of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the 1990s, I attended every Greater Milwaukee Open that was held during Labor Day weekend and found it a great place to go. The weather was always nice, never warm and muggy as we have in Washington D.C. But I knew that in another six weeks or so it would change and the cold would move in with the first snow coming down usually by Thanksgiving. In a way Milwaukee and Sweden are the same with winter just around the corner.

On the drive over it struck me that four Swedes are in the matches. It's a bit mind boggling that this country could produce such good women golfers as Sophie Gustafson, Maria Hjorth, Linda Wessberg and Annika Sorenstam with the limited season. So you can see that Sweden really love's its golf. I couldn't believe this stat but the membership of Halmstad Golf Club is a 50/50 spilt of men and women. So it shouldn't strike anyone as being funny that Sweden has produced so many good women golfers.

Photo: © David Cannon/Getty Images Paula Creamer and Juli Inkster were winners this morning beating Laura Davies and Becky Brewerton 2 & 1.

Sweden has produced some famous people that we forget were born in this country. In looking at the list, there was movie actresses Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo, tennis stars Bjorn Borg and Stefan Endberg. But the most important of them all was Alfred Nobel, who we all know for the yearly Nobel peace prize. It's funny but not many people know that Nobel was a Swedish industrialist who created dynamite and was given a British patent for it in 1867. He constructed and perfected detonators and amassed a great fortune, amounting to $9.2 million upon his death in 1896, which he stipulated go as prizes "to those who have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."

OK, enough of your Swedish history lesson. Here's what happened in the morning matches. The United States took a 2½ to 1½ point lead on a very long and soft golf course. You have to wonder if European captain Helen Alfredsson may have made the course too difficult for the best players in the world. The combination of this plus really raw conditions with tempertures never climbing higher than 50 degrees along with heavy rain towards the end made for a tough go.

The best match was the halve between Pat Hurst and Cristie Kerr over Sophie Gustafson and Suzann Pettersen. After the Americans won the first two holes, the European's hung on and fought back to a point that they almost won the match, only to see Kerr make a 10-footer on the final hole for the halve. After the halve you could tell that Pettersen was not very happy that she was left out of the afternoon four-ball matches, even though she told reporters that she would do whatever is asked to help the team. In the 2nd match of the day, Sherri Steinhauer and Laura Diaz controlled their match against Annika Sorenstam and Catriona Matthew, beating them 4 & 2. In a way, Sorenstam didn't look very good as she and Matthew could never get going. After halving the first hole with bogeys, they lost the 2nd again with a bogey and only got even for one hole before the Americans put it in cruise control to win the 11th, 13th, 15th and 16th.

Photo: ©Andy Lyons/Getty Images The European duo of Gwlady Nocera and Maria Hjorth had a easy match against Natalie Gulbis and Morgan Pressel beating them 3 & 2.

The other American win had Juli Inkster and Paula Creamer beating Laura Davies and Becky Brewerton. In a way this was a first class match that Laura Davies gave away when she hit her tee shot into the water on 16. Then the European pair played poorly on the 17th hole to loss the match 2 & 1. So when a match is even after 15 and then is won with pars you have to feel that you gave things away.

The last match of the day saw a easy European victory for Gwladys Nocera and Maria Hjorth. They beat Natalie Gulbis and Morgan Pressel 3 & 2 in a match that was all Europe from the first hole. A par got them a win and the rest was in their rear view mirror as the American's couldn't come back. Both Pressel and Gulbis looked out of sorts and you have to wonder if that pairing should be dismissed because it just never jived.

Heavy rain hit the course right when the matches finished and continued during the lunch hour. The four-balls teed off in heavy rains, but things have brightened up and turned into drizzle. The temperature has raised to 55% and the outlook is for more showers, but the heavy stuff has passed.

As for the pairings, both captains have changed everything around for the four-balls with Betsy King using all of her players, but for the Europeans, Linda Wessberg and Bettian Hauert will have to wait to hit there first Solheim Cup shots on Saturday.

Sal Johnson

From Sweden

The 2007 Solheim Cup

September 13th, 2007

By SAL JOHNSON
Publisher, GOLFOBSERVER
E-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com

Thursday's items:

HALMSTAD, Sweden., September 13 - What a task it was getting to Sweden and I was only going from Dublin, Ireland. Guess in this age of fast transportation it takes longer than we think, on Wednesday it took me about nine hours to go 1,000 miles.

I was in Ireland for a couple of days and traveled on a 11am SAS flight from Dublin to Copenhagen. Now you may wonder why fly to another country, that's because the Solheim Cup is being played in a small town of Halmstad, which is on the west coast of Sweden. It's about 400 miles west of Stockholm, the capitol of Sweden and 100 miles south of Goteborg, another big town. But it's only 90 miles from Copenhagen, Denmark. With the airport being only a couple of miles from the Oresund Bridge, which crosses the Oresund Strait it seemed the way to go. Now I thought this was the way to go, Ron Sirak of Golf World said that it was very simple to take a flight to Goteborg and then board a fast train to Halmstad so there are other ways to get here.

Photo: © Sal Johnson Oeresund Bridge taken from the plane as we were about to land at Copenhagen Airport.

It was a peaceful drive, despite road construction outside of Malmo. Still it's a long journey, with flying and driving time almost the whole day. The thing I find interesting about Denmark and Sweden is how clean it is. Everything from the hallways at Copenhagen Airport to the bathrooms to the restaurants and roadways are spot clean. Even driving through Sweden is an experience because there is no road signs spoiling the journey with advertising.

Halmstad is about the same latitude as St. Andrews so right now the days of summer are coming to an end. One thing that strikes you about the countryside is the sight of all the wind turbines that are providing the country with cheap electricity. I wasn't about to find the stats for Sweden but the wind powered turbines in Denmark account for 20% of the electricity used in that country. Now wind power may be Denmark's bag but one thing that I didn't know that I found out about Sweden. If your a lover of Absolut vodka, it's distilled in a small town of Ahus, just south of the Oresund Bridge. In 2004 they made 73 million liters of the drink, so next time you have a peach vodka, think of Sweden.

Now we may think the United States is old at about 230 years, but the town of Halmstad is celebrating it's 700th anniversary this year. It's a very nice old town and one that is fun to walk through with all of its shops and friendly people. Yes Sweden could have the friendliest people in the world. Another things about the Swedes, all of them are thin the only overweight person I have seen in my two days is a lady that I saw eating at McDonald's, which may give you a hint. Yes the Golden arches are here, but there aren't many of them and when I had lunch there yesterday the chicken salad was the big seller, not the quarter pounder with cheese.

Photo: © David Cannon/Getty Images The 18th hole at Halmstad GolfKlubb.

Now lets get to the golf, there are almost 500 courses in this country. The most famous ones are the links of Falsterbo, Ljunghusen or Barseback (site of the 2003 Solheim Cup). Possibly Kungsangen, Frosaker or Ulina but the one that is gaining ground very quickly and some say is the best course in Sweden is Halmstad the site of the Solheim Cup. The club is located in Tylösand on a promontory that juts out into the Kattegat Strait, which in turn separates Sweden from Denmark. It’s a surreal setting where you can smell the salty sea air and you can hear the sea, but you can’t see it The course and area around it are completely surrounded by trees, in a way it looks like holes 12 throught 16 at Pebble Beach of the back side of Spyglass Hill if you know those courses. Halmstad Golf Club was originally founded in 1930 and in those days golf was played on the army training ground. Some better land was soon identified and in 1935 Rafael Sundblom of Stockholm started work on a new course and three years later it was ready for play. In 1963, Nils Sköld was commissioned to lay out an additional nine holes to the north of the existing course. Therefore, the North course comprises of the nine holes designed by Nils Sköld and the back nine of the Rafael Sundblom layout.

You may also find it hard to believe but this is the first really big professional event this great course has had on it. Yes it had the Swedish PGA in 1982 won by Anders Forsbrand and Laura Davies won the 1999 Ladies European Chrysler Open with Carin Koch winning here first Tour event the next year.

So what about the Solheim Cup?

Photo: © David Cannon/Getty Images John Solheim of PING makes the annoucement with Ladies European Tour Executive Director Alexandra Armas and LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bevans that PING will sponsor four more Solheim Cups.

First of all the bad news, the timing of this event right up against the Tour Championship isn't the best. Unfortunely this date was picked long before the FedEx Cup schedule was made, in trying the find out from officials why they couldn't change it, nobody had the answer. Wisdom tells us that if they could of changed the date to next week, in the United States at least they would of gotten a lot better coverage and people would of cared about it more up against the inaugural Turning Stone Championship (yes that's the PGA Tour fare for next week) but it's still a big deal in Sweden and this is the week it's being played.

As for the good news, the Ping corporation which started this event in 1990 has committed financially for the next four competitions taking it up to 2015. It was also announced today that additional sponsors are joining up and the added money will grow the Solheim Cup into a really first class event.

As for the teams, the Americans have the experience disadvantage with four rookies compared to just two for the Europeans. Also the American players have played in just 22 Solheim Cups (with Julie Inkster leading the way with 6) compared to the 40 Solheim Cups the Europeans have (with Laura Davies playing in all 9). If you take away the experience of Laura Davies and Annika Sorenstam, that in a way swings the advantage to the American team.

Photo: © Andy Lyons/Getty Images Swedish fans watch the opening ceremony in the town square in Halmstad, Sweden.

Many are saying that even though the American's have more talent on there team, the course will play long which will suit the European's game. On top of that, the Swedish gallery will be helping give there support. There is no too ways about it, the European team is going to have to pile on plenty of points in the team competition to have any chance since they will be at a disadvantage during Sunday's singles. An indication of how European captain Helen Alfredsson feels is she is sending out her big guns early with Suzann Petterson paired with Sophie Gustafson and then Annika Sorenstam paired with Catriona Matthew followed by Laura Davies with Becky Brewerton. The last team of Gwladys Nocera and Maria Hjorth is the only one with a rookie paring. The women that Alfredsson is sending out has a 29-12-6 record in team competition so she needs to put points up on the board early.

As for Betsy King her pairings have a modest 13-13-5 record in team competition as she sends off Pat Hurst and Cristie Kerr in the first match followed by Sherri Steinhauer. I really feel that if these four could get in front early it will send a very bad message to the last two pairings. In those games, King has Juli Inkster playing with Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis with Morgan Pressel, the only rookie playing for the Americans in the morning.

As for Friday morning, it's going to start out a bit chilly, in the 50s with sunny skies with the temperature rising to the low 60s. Again, the course is lush and the rough thick, also look for the wind to pop up in the afternoon. This plays havoc on the American players who in some cases aren't use to cool, windy conditions.

I will check in with you tomorrow afternoon to see what happened in the first round.