First blood to Europe as Americans lick their wounds

ON THE last day they came in their thousands. Maybe it was the sunshine. Maybe it was the glut of Europeans in contention and particularly the Swedes. Maybe it was the large canvas of Killeen Castle. But Sunday in Dunsany enveloped the AIB Ladies Irish Open in warmth and blue skies.

Event promoter for next year’s Solheim Cup Roddy Carr felt the three-day total of 35,000 spectators was good reason for optimism for next year’s staging of the battle between Europe and America. Next year, too, the Americans will be coming with bigger names and a more aggressive attitude.

“We’d 35,000 for the week,” said Carr. “Our greatest expectations were 15,000. We started (the Irish Open) with 10,000. We did 15,000 the second year and we said if we did 20,000 this year we’d be delighted.

“We had the best here. Look at the scoring and the way they played. The last four Solheim Cups have had 100,000 people attending. Our target for next year is between 80,000 and 100,000 and I’m now fairly confident the support will be there.

“You also have somewhere to go here. You will have Paula Creamer (ranked seven). You will have Michelle Wie (ranked 12). You will have Morgan Pressell (ranked 14). You’ll probably have Natalie Gulbis and the girls who were here so you’ll have the best in the world.”

There was also the sense that the five American Solheim Cup players who came over for the experience largely went home with their tails between their legs. The highest-ranked American, Britanny Lang, was seventh and along with Britanny Lincicome tied eighth and Christina Kim, tied 12th, the US players were swallowed up in a sea of European names and a few Koreans.

“They weren’t expecting the strategy or the set-up of the golf course” said Carr. “They had this thing in their mind about links golf. They feel that it’s a good venue for them, which is interesting from the Solheim’s point of view. The girls came over with a mission to play the AIB Irish Open but they were having a good look at the golf course and Rosie Jones (Solheim Cup captain) was all over the comments going back, as is Juli Inkster (assistant captain). It’s very interesting to see the strategic card game that is starting right now.”

Whether the Americans’ difficult adjustment to the Irish terrain was because of the unpredictable temperatures and rain or the nature of the course is hard to tell. But if the package was intimidating, it could be optimistically construed as one up for Europe 12 months out.

“It wasn’t wrong to say that,” said Carr. “That was all part of the strategy. The Let (Ladies European Tour) dictate how the course is set up. That’s quite an unusual result for five American Solheim Cup players. The standard of golf was outstanding.”

That was set up at full LPGA (Ladies Professional Golf Association) spec, full US Open green specs and they absolutely killed it.

“You look at the leaderboard and you see Europe, Europe, Korea, Europe . . . Nice little warm feeling about the venue and a lot of lessons learned by the captains, so strategically hugely important.”

It’s important to get momentum and for fans to understand the level of golf and the competitive nature of the Solheim Cup event. The 36th Ryder Cup was the last such big team jamboree to be staged in Ireland when it was run at the K Club in 2006.

Last week the men’s Irish Open also attracted sizeable galleries to Killarney. Carr sees the team competition as having the potential of becoming a mass attraction event.

“It was an interesting phenomenon with the Irish Open in Killarney last week,” he said. “That was the first time they came out since the Ryder Cup. They kind of went to sleep after that.

“The combination of moving it to Kerry, the Irish doing so well with McDowell, McIlroy and Harrington and all of a sudden there was this movement. I felt that here. We consolidated it last year in Portmarnock and it was a fairly risky move taking it here into Meath. But we’ve been astounded by the support. We think the momentum is there.

“We’ve over doubled our attendance since last year. We also expect to bring in 10,000 people which is the difference to the Ryder Cup. They brought in about 2,000 to 3,000 people. We would have 600 already coming from Sweden. We expect 2,500 to come from the UK. Rosie (Jones, US captain) expects 4-5,000 from America. It’s quite unique in that sense.”

First blood then to Europe. A real cat fight begins.