GOLFING history could, perhaps even should, be made by the end of this week. If Europe's Solheim Cup team beat their American rivals over the next three days at St Pierre, near Chepstow, it will mark the first time teams from this side of the Atlantic have ever simultaneously held all the four trophies available for competition with the United States, i.e the Ryder, Walker, Curtis and now Solheim Cups.
The first three of those have been safely brought ashore, but if, the fourth is not landed, then the fault, remarkably enough, will not lie with the players, more with the misguided committee that negotiated the rules of the contest. These are heavily weighted in favour of the team with more strength in depth, which is acknowledged by both sides to be the Americans and it is going to require a remarkable effort by the Europeans to counteract an advantage gifted over the negotiating table.
The European players at St Pierre are, of course, upbeat and confident. They know they possess the best three players in the Ping world rankings in order, Laura Davies, Annika Sorenstam and Lotte Neumann. They have three more in the top 20 in Alison Nicholas, Marie Laure de Lorenzi and Helen Alfredsson and they have the comforting twin thoughts that in match play anything can happen, and that it did at Dalmahoy in 1992 where they beat the Americans by 11 1/2 to 6 1/2.
But that win was achieved with a team of 10 who played a total of 18 matches. The Americans not only could not believe it, they absolutely did not like it and set about ensuring that it could not happen again. By the time the 1994 matches were played the format had been changed so that there were more matches and even before they had won that contest decisively, 13-7, the format for this year had been changed yet again.
In straightforward bargaining, the Europeans were hopelessly outmanoevered. What they have now are teams of 12, who will compete for 28 points, rather than the `Dalmahoy formula' of 10 person teams and 18 points. Given that the European captain, Mickey Walker, openly admits that the American tour is stronger in depth than the European version, the logic of such an acquiesence is difficult to follow.
The Americans, however, have got what they want, they have achieved their edge and now it is up to the European players to get their officials out of the hole they have dug for themselves.
It will not, of course, be easy. The Americans may lack the top three in the rankings, but they have numbers five to nine in Michelle McGann, Dottie Pepper, Meg Mallon, Kelley Robbins and Jane Geddes, and their entire side is within the top 21 in the world. Europe's last six range from 22nd to 97th.
However, the one thing the Americans do not have is Laura Davies, an inspirational figure who gives to her side what Severiano Ballesteros does to the Ryder Cup, what Gordon Sherry gave to the Walker Cup and Janice Moodie did to the Curtis Cup. All have been focal points for their teams, able by force of personality to convince other players that the impossible simply does not exist.
Davies has been in irresistible form this season, having won two majors in America, two US Tour events, plus twice in Europe and once in Japan.
Such has been her success, and the buccaneering way in which she achieves it, she was asked yesterday if she saw herself as the Greg Norman of the women's tour? After all has she not just bought a Ferrari and has she not, over the last 12 years, indulged her hobby of gambling to the extent of losses of £500,000? Surely this was fast lane living, just like Norman?
"Oh no," she said. "I only play at it. He's got serious money, he's the real thing. He's got ALL the toys," she said of a man who has just replaced his old Gulfstream 3 jet with the latest Gulfstream 4.
Davies has played the last eight weeks in a row, winning last week and might be expected to be tired. Captain Walker does not think so. "She is just incredible. She is probably stronger and fitter than anybody and has proved that by what she has done over the last 10 years. If she wasn't playing in the afternoon fourballs she would probably be having a game of football followed by a game of cricket followed by a game of tennis. To go out and play 18 holes in the afternoon following 18 in the morning is probably a relatively easy day for her."
In such diverse ways do people tell Laura they love her and if she can reciprocate by helping win the Solheim Cup on Sunday it would be a fitting end to what has been a superb season for her.
