CAESARES, SPAIN – If you had told Stacy Lewis that her dozen American charges would be a singles Sunday session win away from taking back the Solheim Cup in the first of a back-to-back home-and-home with Europe, she almost certainly would have been thrilled at the prospect.
Now that prospect is reality.
The Americans took advantage of a slow European start on Friday at Finca Cortesin to jump out to a 4-0 start against Suzann Pettersen's side. That first-of-its-kind foursomes session for the US is exactly why they start the 12 singles matches on Sunday on equal footing with the host team at 8 points apiece. Since then, it's been a European clawback to level terms.
In the 12 matches since that opening whitewash, Europe has won eight points. Pettersen has done so riding a trio of horses who have played all four sessions: Leona Maguire, Linn Grant and an unlikely hero in Emily Kristine Pedersen, who was seen as a controversial selection to this squad.
Maguire and Grant, however, have seemingly gotten stronger with each successive match. In the Saturday afternoon four-ball matches, each looked like they could have broken 60 on their own ball. Grant may have played her best golf as a professional in that afternoon romp with partner Carlota Ciganda, which was absolutely necessary to hold off the American duo of Danielle Kang and Lilia Vu by a 2-and-1 count.
Pedersen has been strong throughout the week, even if she might not have been originally in the plan to go all five matches. Pettersen rounded out her team on instinct and trotted out players trusting her gut. Go with what you know. Or at least what you think you know.
The points to tie, however, may have come at the cost of the stamina of those three Europeans. Nevertheless, Maguire finds herself second off on Sunday morning against Rose Zhang in a dream match of two of the greatest American collegiate players in history. Grant leads off the docket against Megan Khang, who will have no lack of confidence or swagger leading the way. Pedersen holds the anchor position against Lexi Thompson, whose slotting may be a quiet vote of confidence from Stacy Lewis while she simultaneously hopes it never comes to the final match. It rarely does.
Lewis leads with Khang and Zhang, then sends out Danielle Kang to take on Charley Hull, who is battling a neck injury and illness that have limited her availability this week. In the middle are most of the relatively untested Americans, including Cheyenne Knight, who has gone unbeaten in her two matches.
The four-person American firewall ends with Thompson but gets going with two-time major winner this year Lilia Vu, US Women's Open champ and smiling assassin Allisen Corpuz and Nelly Korda.
Both sides led with emotional spark plugs, played their perceived dubious players in the middle and shored up the slate with quality in the final third. Both captains, perhaps against the reality of history, perceive an epic conclusion.
No matter how it ends, Europe now clearly has a day-and-a-half of momentum. The US, who looked at times out of gas on Saturday afternoon, has to rally around the exciting potential of wresting back the Solheim Cup that they first earned Friday morning.
To get to this point, Lewis trusted the player performance data she smartly acquired thanks to a long-term partner in KPMG, who has helped bring strokes gained to the LPGA. That data netted some unlikely successful pairings, like Knight and Angel Yin. Now she has to trust her instincts and the blind draw to win one final session. Six-and-a-half points will do it. It doesn't matter how it happens, just that it does.
"Go take care of your point. I mean, that's the message," Lewis said Saturday night. "Go take care of your own match. Don't look at the leaderboard. Put your head down and go win your point."
