Friday marks the first day of competition in the Solheim Cup, the biennial contest matching a team of 12 golfers from the United States versus a team from Europe. This year’s event will take place at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind., with the Europeans trying to hold onto the trophy they won in 2003. Heading the U.S. team in the best-ball, alternate-shot and head-to-head singles matches is all-time great Nancy Lopez. Recently, Lopez, the winner of 48 career LPGA events and a member of the first U.S. Solheim Cup team, chatted about this year’s matchup.
Anthony Cotton: I can’t imagine what you’re feeling now.
Nancy Lopez: I’ve been excited for two years. Now the vomiting starts.
AC: Yeah, I guess you can say that you want to do it, but now that it’s actually here …
NL: It’s been great. I’ve enjoyed it. It’s been a lot of fun. The only thing I haven’t enjoyed was telling three really nice players that they couldn’t be on my team. That was really, really tough.
AC: That was Heather Bowie, Dorothy Delasin and …
NL: Stacy Prammanasudh. For the last couple of months, they’ve been in the top 15, and every time I had something going on, we’d invite the top 15, so they’ve been there. It was very, very hard for me. It broke my heart. Heather played great; I just hated not taking her, but I just went for more experience.
AC: Over the course of the season, a lot of us would ask you different things about the team, say, the idea of taking an 18-year-old rookie, Paula Creamer, if she didn’t make the top 10 in points. The way it turned out, it seemed easy to pick Beth Daniel and Wendy Ward with your two captain’s picks.
NL: I think so, too. Beth hasn’t been able to play a lot of golf during the season because she was on the committee to find a new commissioner. She’s playing golf, but she had to fly here and fly there whenever they called her. I think that really took away on her concentrating on golf. She had to push her golf aside, even though she really wanted to be on the Solheim Cup team. It was what she had to do at that time, so I had to give her the benefit of the doubt. It was easier to pick her than Wendy or Heather. I didn’t decide that until last week. I was really looking for something to tell me what I needed to do.
AC: And what was it?
NL: I asked a lot of people’s opinions. I didn’t want them to influence my choice; I just wanted to hear what they had to say. To me, it’s always good to have more than one mind thinking about something. I just realized I needed to go with more experience.
AC: Have you had a chat with Paula yet about the art of diplomacy? (When the picks were announced last week, Creamer guaranteed a victory for the United States.)
NL: Everybody knows she’s young. She’s very excited about playing on the team. She can’t wait to play. She’s expressing that. The other players were like, “Ohhhhhhh …”
AC: There was a lot of nervous laughter.
NL: Really. They didn’t want to make the Europeans too mad, because they might end up playing great. But once she realized what she’d said, she came to me and we talked for a while. I think she felt she might have overstepped her boundaries, but I thought it was pretty exciting. It charged me up. And I want my players to all think that. They may not all say it to the press, but I want them to all definitely think that.
AC: What are your initial thoughts about having three first- time players (Creamer, Christina Kim and Natalie Gulbis) on the team?
NL: I’ll learn a lot on the first day. I’ll be able to watch and see how they withstand the pressure. They’ve done great on the tour, but, again, Solheim Cup pressure is just different. You can’t explain it; it’s just different, and they will all feel it. But I truly feel they’ll be able to deal with it, just by watching how they deal with pressure now. I’ve really enjoyed watching them play.
AC: How much consideration do you give to the idea of meshing the different personalities when it comes to the pairings for four-ball or alternate shot?
NL: We had two days of practice and if they came to both, they each played with four different players. To me, it opened a lot of their eyes. They’d say, “Wow, I’ve never played with her before; I really liked it.” Or, “Our games weren’t really compatible.” But I didn’t want to hear anything negative. That wasn’t going to go with me. You can tell if your game is good with another player’s game, but the personalities, because we’ve spent time together and gotten to know each other a little better. … Everybody has a different personality, but there’s always something – or two, or four or five things – that you always like about somebody. You just have to bond and learn it for yourselves, without anyone else giving you their opinion.
AC: It must be very strange that every two years, these players who are trying to beat each other’s brains out week after week, have to come together and play as a team.
NL: It is. There are times when two players have never played together, ever. There were tournaments I played where I’d never see certain players. You’d never see players for weeks, and you’d never know they were in the same tournament.
AC: What is it about the alternate shot that makes the U.S. struggle, whether it’s the Ryder Cup or Solheim Cup?
NL: It’s never played on our tour, and I think the Europeans play it more in their home countries. But I think my players will be more familiar with it now because they’ve played it a couple of times, they’re more ready. You’ve got to win at least two of those matches on Friday morning. My goal is to win three, and I hope I can accomplish that. We – they’re the ones who are playing – but I want to have the right people out there. Hopefully I can make the right choices.
AC: You’ve been hinting, how about a little insight in terms of the pairings?
NL: I can’t. Noooooo!
AC: Do they know?
NL: Not really, not yet. I’ve got it all on paper. When they get there, they’ll know.
AC: The Sunday singles have become a question of whether the captain front-loads, starting out with the best players or spreads the talent out throughout the day. What are your thoughts?
NL: It all depends on where you stand (after the first two days). I kind of have my lineup now, and I let Ray (Lopez’s husband Ray Knight, a former major-league baseball player and manager) do his lineup without looking at mine, and I’m going to have (assistant captain) Donna Caponi do a lineup without looking at mine, and I’m just going to compare and see what everybody’s thoughts are. But I have my thoughts now. We’ll just see if they have to change for any reason on Sunday.
AC: Laura Diaz is five months pregnant. Will that affect how you use her?
NL: I don’t think so. She looks great. She’s really taken care of herself; she’s gained very little weight. When I was five months pregnant, I looked like it was nine months! I think she may get a little tired, but she says she feels great; maybe she won’t. I just know I carried a lot of weight around, and she isn’t.
AC: Will Mr. Knight have a role in this for you?
NL: He’s been working with me a lot on statistics and looking at the players. He’s kind of been my assistant captain at home. Ray is a real good listener; he’s been more of a sounding board for me. And he’s stayed on that computer night and day, throwing stuff out for me to look at. That’s how those baseball players are – they’re into all that stat stuff and I’m not.
AC: Do you have a cowboy hat, like (U.S. captain) Hal Sutton wore at the Ryder Cup?
NL: No. No cowboy hats.
AC: I don’t think people realize all that it takes to be a captain in an event like this. There’s a lot that goes into it.
NL: There is. Just something like listening to your players all year, and forming a relationship with them. I’ve always been a competitor of theirs, and now I have to become, hopefully, someone they can come and talk to. It’s almost like becoming the mom of the players. You want them to share their deepest thoughts with you, and they have to be kept secret. And I’m good at that. At Christmas time, I don’t tell anybody what they’re getting. I’ve never been the kind of person that has to tell everyone everything. I’ve always been able to keep stuff to myself. I want them to trust me and know that if they share something with me, it stays with me.
Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-820-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
