Cup of cheer for Solheim changes

ALMOST without exception, fans of women’s golf, and certainly Alison Nicholas, the current European Solheim Cup captain, were delighted when the Ladies’ European Tour recently announced changes to the Solheim Cup qualification system. There are four main changes, the most significant being the three captain’s picks no longer have to play in a minimum number of events over the qualification period to be eligible for selection.

Last year in Halmstad, Helen Alfredsson made no bones about the fact that she would have seriously considered taking Janice Moodie as one of her three captain’s picks had she been available for selection. Many of you will remember that, due to becoming a mum in September 2006, for much of the two-year qualification period Janice hadn’t been playing much golf and certainly hadn’t fulfilled the criteria of playing in a minimum of six LET events.

If the new legislation had been in place, Janice and several other American-based European players would have been available for selection. Speaking as a former captain myself, I believe it is even more important to have a team of players who have regular experience of playing on the LPGA Tour with and against the top Americans when the match is played in America as it will be in 2009.

At the 2005 match at Crooked Stick, the course – with its lightning-fast greens and thick rough sometimes just inches off the greens – meant that those on the European team who weren’t familiar with those conditions were at a serious disadvantage.
American friends kept asking me why Lotta Neumann and Karine Icher weren’t in the team – both of whom had had particularly good years on the LPGA Tour.

I mean no disrespect to any of the non-America-based Europeans, but I really think that we didn’t have our strongest team on that occasion. As much as we have some of the highest-ranked players in the world, players such as Annika Sorenstam and Suzann Pettersen, we need to be strong throughout the team.

That way our top-ranked players don’t feel under extreme pressure to win, knowing that if they don’t, realistically we have little chance of victory. I can remember having heated discussions about the selection process years ago. My argument was always that we needed our strongest team to have a chance of winning. If that meant taking the top 12 European players who played on the LPGA Tour, then that’s what I wanted!

Of course, I could see it was in the best interests of developing the European Tour to make players return to play in Europe to be eligible for selection, but I always felt winning the Solheim Cup would make selling the European Tour to sponsors a lot easier. I also believed that the European players who were good enough to get their LPGA cards and aspired to compete with the best for vast amounts of prize money could maybe not be persuaded to return on a regular basis to play in Europe.

Fortunately the situation has moved on from the 90s. The Ricoh Women’s British Open is a Major, the Evian Masters is the unofficial fifth Major and has the second-richest prize fund after the US Open, while Annika’s association with the Scandinavian TPC tournament has helped no end.

With the Ricoh and the Evian being jointly sanctioned by the LPGA and the LET and there being greater interaction between the tours than ever before, it seems that there is scope for further such tournaments. The other Solheim change that is really welcome will see those players finishing in the top 20 of the Majors and Evian Masters receive Solheim Cup points.

Previously a player only received points for a top 10. All the changes will help Alison to lead a team of players who are in good form, and who perform well under the pressure of playing in Majors. In an ideal scenario, the European captain would have 12 picks, but we all know that isn’t practical or fair, and nor is it going to happen.

That apart, the changes are certainly a huge step forward in allowing us to have our strongest team. We will need it if we’re to be competitive at Rich Harvest Farms next year!