In the madcap final day of the 2011 Solheim Cup at Killeen Castle in Co Meath, the crowds – 28,000 of them, rain-soaked and delirious – looked on Suzann Pettersen as if she were a supernatural being. Maybe she was. For sure, the Norwegian was the talismanic figurehead of a European team which defied all odds in defeating a star-studded United States and her closing actions – three straight birdies – to defeat Michelle Wie in the decisive singles that day only underscored her ability to stand out from everyone else.
One of those looking on that Sunday was a 16-year-old Leona Maguire, who’d played in the Junior Solheim Cup earlier in the week. In the press conference afterwards, Pettersen made reference to, perhaps, her deeds one day inspiring some young Irish girl to dream of playing in a Solheim Cup. Little could she have known the prophecy of her words, or that the girl was already dreaming such thoughts.
As Maguire would observe after making her own Solheim Cup debut in 2021 of Pettersen’s impact on her: “Suzann was a big hero of mine growing up. She was someone that I really looked up to. I admired her passion for the game and her competitiveness.”
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Indeed, few if any players have worn the spirit of the Solheim Cup for Europe like Pettersen, who – long before there was a Viktor Hovland – took pioneering strides for Norwegian golf and consequently in becoming the rock of European teams in so many of those biennial encounters with the Americans.
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Pettersen played in nine Solheim Cups and was on the winning team four times (in 2003, 2011, 2013 and 2019). That superhuman feat in 2011 at Killeen Castle was achieved when she was the standout player for Europe, the only one ranked in the world’s top-20 (she was number two at the time) while the Americans had no fewer than seven inside the top-20.
Pettersen’s close-out of Wie that day told us all we needed to know about her resilience and will. Asked where she had found such a hat-trick of birdies, she joked: “I don’t know. I found them on eBay this morning. I don’t know.”
Later, there was a more considered analysis. Of the 18-footer for birdie on the 16th, she said: “I had to make it. There was only one execution and it was to hole the putt to even have a chance to get my full point ... I guess we’ll remember this [win] for the rest of our lives.”
That was Pettersen’s second Solheim Cup win as a player, her first since Barseback in 2003, and she would prove again to be the on-course leader when the trophy was retained in 2013. For a player who won 21 professional titles – 15 of them on the LPGA Tour, including two Majors at the 2007 LPGA Championship and the 2013 Evian Championship – in her storied career, the Solheim Cup was where her passion was best showcased.
There was, too, another side to her desire. It came at the 2015 match in St Leon-Rot in Germany, where the USA narrowly won but the visiting captain Juli Inkster branded Europe as “disrespectful”.
The incident at play had Pettersen as the villain of the piece, after she claimed the hole in a fourballs match after American Alison Lee scooped up her ball on the 17th green believing the two-foot putt had been conceded. At the time, Pettersen and Charley Hull were all square with two to play against Lee and Brittany Lincicome. Lee finished the match in tears, with Inkster remarking: “I have never seen anything like it in my career. It’s just not right. You just don’t do that to your peers.”
Pettersen subsequently issued an apology but, in that incident, it seemed that the Solheim Cup had bared its teeth for what it was, a full-on, no-holds-barred match.
Pettersen went out in style as a player, holing the winning putt at Gleneagles in 2019.
Next week, Pettersen will seek to add to her lore when she captains the European team against the Americans at Finca Cortesín in southern Spain in their quest for a historic three-in-a-row. And the Norwegian will also captain Europe in next year’s match at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Virginia, when the match reverts to even years in the calendar.
The transition from player to captain should be seamless, you’d imagine. Pettersen, though, preferred to have her own control as a player. “I must say it almost feels better to be a playing because you know what you’re doing. You’re going out there doing what you know the best, and you kind of feel like you have control. Sitting on the sideline is probably the worst for me.
“That’s the time when you just have to put all your faith and trust in the 12 players you have, and we are going to have a phenomenal team this year ... that’s kind of the hard part for me is to not have control once the start goes.”
Pettersen’s team in Spain is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, going by the Rolex world rankings, that Europe has had in the match’s history. Where she was the only European player ranked in the top-20 at Killeen Castle, there are five – Celine Boutier (5), Hull (8), Linn Grant (15), Georgia Hall (16) and Maguire (17) – on the team at Finca Cortesín who are inside the current world’s top-20.
And the team go in with momentum, aiming for a third straight win – the victories in 2019 and 2021 under the captaincy of Catriona Matthew – that hint at the potential for a spell of European dominance.
“I think all we can focus on from the European side is kind of keep generating, recruiting great young players,” said Pettersen. “And eventually, when it comes down to the Solheim Cup, at least the ones I’ve played, even though the results, the final results on paper might look differently, it’s for the most part very, very close. It usually comes down to a putt here or shot there at a crucial point that kind of tips it one way or the other.
“We’ve had a great kind of run since 2011, and I think the players really want it. When you really want something, you’re ready to kind of roll up the sleeves and work for it ... hard work pays off always over time, and I think that’s kind of how the results relate here.
“It’s hard for me to speak from the US side because most of them play on the LPGA [Tour], and you kind of see them fairly often. On the European side there’s maybe more new names popping up every season, that’s either kick-starting their professional career or [having] breakthrough years.”
As a player, Pettersen brought that passion to the Solheim Cup. As a captain, expect the same.
