Europe has bragging rights again in the Solheim Cup, and now a trend is forming.
After two tense days in the Netherlands, in which we saw match play at its glorious best, Team Europe bagged seven points in the singles to regain the trophy they lost to the United States in 2024
Debutant Lottie Woad secured the point Europe needed for victory, with Spaniard Carlota Ciganda still on the course three up in her match with three holes left, guaranteeing to tip the scales to 14.5. Angela Stanford’s America went down swinging, but Anna Nordqvist was the winning captain.
Europe won at a drizzly Bernardus just a week after Great Britain and Ireland made history by winning the Walker Cup at Lahinch, toppling an impressive American side that led by three points after the penultimate foursomes session.
Team golf is trending nicely in this part of the world. For a matter of days in September 2015, Europe and GB&I held all three trophies after a Walker Cup victory at Royal Lytham, before the US won the Solheim Cup in Germany. But this is the first time that the US has ended a year without all three trophies since 2004.
GB&I memorably won the Walker Cup for the third time in a row in 2003 at Ganton, Europe comfortably won the Solheim Cup in Sweden in the same year, and Europe hammered the US at Oakland Hills in the Ryder Cup 12 months later.
At least America won the Curtis Cup earlier this year.
So, is there something the United States is getting completely wrong about team match play?
No fingers should be pointed for Walker Cup loss
Team USA and captain Nathan Smith will no doubt look back on the 2026 Walker Cup with some regret. After sweeping the Sunday foursomes session 4-0, US fans, players and the captain will have been collectively licking their lips at the prospect of a sixth consecutive win at the event.
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What happened in the Sunday singles was dramatic and courageous from all points of view. GB&I won six matches, with the off-course financial advisor Stuart Grehan taking down World No.1 amateur Preston Stout, then Josh Hill making a gutsy birdie on the last hole of the event to edge the contest 13.5-12.5.
But the United States were outstanding as well. They arrived at Lahinch, embraced the conditions and the town, and essentially lost a coin flip. They thrashed GB&I on home soil at Cypress Point in 2025, and despite losing the cup on this occasion, they will likely be favourites to regain it at Bandon Dunes in 2028.
Truthfully, the Walker Cup is all part of each player’s education. There is no need for ferocious finger-pointing in the captain’s direction, like there is at the Ryder Cup. Of course, each player would rather win, but for each losing team – Cypress last year and Lahinch this year – so much will have been learned.
It is better to point to the successes of each captain, and to the intricate detail each shows in their jobs and preparation. GB&I captain Dean Robertson told the NCG Golf Podcast of the remarkable lengths of his data analysis and methods that he and his team used on their way to victory.
You can safely assume that US captain Smith will have adopted similar strategies. It just so happens that he and his team were on the end of a monstrous comeback for which one can hardly legislate.
US Solheim’s effort ran out of steam in the singles again
If there is something the US Solheim Cup team must/could improve on, it is singles match play.
This sounds like a strange statement given that it is a team event, but they haven’t won a singles session since 2015, and in that time, they have won two of six Solheim Cups.
Captain Stanford won’t have missed this. Captains have enough time to analyse these events to the nth degree, and they do, so she will have been aware of this worrying trend. They even lost the singles on home turf in 2024, when they won the trophy in Virginia.
It can be difficult to judge the tangible influence that captains have on individual performances, no matter how much you hear of the thorough methods of European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald, or even Dean Robertson.
In 2019 and 2021, Team USA lost the Solheim Cup by one point, then two points. The 2023 event was a draw, and in 2026, it was a match of fine margins with only two points separating the teams. In 2019, America lost the singles by one point, and drew 6-6 in 2021 and 2023.
The recent history of this event could be significantly different if the United States had cracked the singles.
As for the 2026 Solheim Cup, it is hard to pick out what Stanford might’ve done wrong. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course. Could Alison Lee and Lauren Coughlin have played together again in the Saturday fourballs, as well as each foursomes session? Was there anything she could’ve done differently about the Saturday foursomes, which they lost 3-1? Were her methods thorough enough internally?
I’m squinting, really. Who knows?
Ironically, European captain Nordqvist persevered with the pairing of Charley Hull and Lottie Woad in every session of the first two days, and they had half a point to show for it. Had Europe lost, a huge spotlight would’ve shone on that. After winning her Saturday foursomes match, Leona Maguire became the quickest player to 10 points in the event’s history. The Irishwoman has a super Solheim record, but sat out Friday afternoon.
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The 2026 Solheim Cup was tight enough to suggest there were no real missteps by the captains, but the US should definitely revisit their singles record.
Where do you begin with the US Ryder Cup team?
A sub-section with an H2 can’t possibly summarise what the US Ryder Cup team is getting wrong.
Team USA has won three Ryder Cups since 2002. In that time, Europe has also won away from home three times, most recently in 2025 when they won in the grim cauldron of Bethpage on Long Island.
Players and fans of Europe would probably point to one thing to explain Europe’s success: they just care more. While this might sound like a reductive conclusion, it is a sum of parts that suggest it is, indeed, true.
“There are no superstars in our team. When they are in the team room, they leave egos at the door,” said Thomas Bjorn, captain of the winning European team in 2018.
I’ll try some examples from the most recent Ryder Cups. In 2023, Team USA became embroiled in a pay-for-play controversy. Patrick Cantlay was said to have been ringleading the campaign for US players to be compensated for their efforts wearing red, white and blue.
Lo and behold, in 2025, the players were awarded a six-figure stipend for playing, which some members of the team said they’d donate to charity. The Ryder Cup pay debate goes back a little further, though. It was before the 1999 Ryder Cup when comments from Tiger Woods and David Duval sparked debates around remuneration, and the stench has lingered since.
As a result, Europe has often taken the moral high ground. European players treat the event like a privilege and some players have rejected the notion of being paid, whereas the perception of the American players’ attitude is the opposite.
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This is the tip of the iceberg as to why Team USA keep sinking at the Ryder Cup, but recent renewals do shed light for us. The captaincy department is another factor.
Donald was made European captain in 2023 when Henrik Stenson was removed for joining LIV Golf. After a stellar playing career in the Ryder Cup, Donald carried this into leadership. Using detailed methods and seemingly superb relationship skills, Donald led the continent to victory in 2023 and 2025. They will be favourites in 2027, as well.
The US captaincy is night and day in coherence. After missing out on selection for the 2023 US team that went to Rome, Bradley’s rejection call from captain Zach Johnson was shown on the Netflix show Full Swing. He attracted considerable sympathy for this.
These episodes were released on Netflix in March, 2024. Keegan Bradley was named Ryder Cup captain in July and continued to compete to qualify for his own team.
The will-he-won’t-he soap opera dominated the following 12 months. He even won the Travelers Championship – a matter of months before he was set to lead out the US at Bethpage. Bradley still didn’t know if he’d play at that stage.
As this chaos grew new arms and legs by the week, Europe plotted steadily in the background, and they won. While this was a unique situation in which America nearly ended up with a playing captain for the first time since 1963, it’s an example of why Team USA perhaps ‘don’t get it’.
Europe don’t always win, but they win more than the United States do. Camaraderie, spirit and ethos don’t always lead to good golf, but there must be something in it when Team USA often appears stronger on paper but fails to excel in team match play at the Ryder Cup.
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Conclusion
There is no through-line in the Solheim Cup, Walker Cup and the Ryder Cup that explains why Team USA currently hold none of these trophies.
GB&I performed heroics in Ireland, Team Europe continued their singles success at Bernardus to win back the Solheim Cup, and Europe continues to be a cohesive unit when faced with the shoddily put-together US Ryder Cup team.
Who knows? By this time in 2028, there might be a completely different outlook…
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