Solheim Cup may have the history but it needs big names too | Ewan Murray
As Europe and the US prepare to face off at Gleneagles the claims that the event is ‘the pinnacle of women’s golf’ fall flat when only two of the world’s top 10 are playing
With 80,000 tickets sold – a record for a women’s golf event in Britain – and from evidence of an acclaimed Ryder Cup held at the same course in the not so recent past, the 16th staging of the Solheim Cup will play out minus waves of negativity. Gleneagles, with its rolling Perthshire hills, is about as photogenic a venue as golf can provide.
Still, this competition between Europe and the United States requires appropriate context amid evolution – and revolution – in women’s golf. Perhaps it is harsh to criticise giddy advertising claims but it is tricky not to take exception to one on the Solheim Cup website. This, we are told, is “the pinnacle of women’s golf”.