DEN BOSCH, Netherlands (AP) — Nelly Korda played like the world No. 1 in a record-setting partnership with Allisen Corpuz, helping the Americans split the opening foursomes 2-2 with Team Europe in a loud and wet start to the Solheim Cup in the Netherlands on Friday.
The early soundtrack to Day 1 — party music and chants just after dawn on a typically boisterous first tee — quickly turned into cheers from visiting American fans around a gloomy Bernardus
Golf as Korda and Corpuz dominated the star-studded opening match against Europe’s best top players, Charley Hull and Lottie Woad.
With their 4-and-3 win, the U.S. pairing claimed a fifth straight win — an unprecedented feat at the Solheim Cup.
When Alison Lee and Lauren Coughlin put more red on the board by beating Nanna Koerstz Madsen and Alison Lee as rain started to fall, the United States had two of the 14 points needed to take the crystal trophy back across the Atlantic.
Europe rallied, though, with victories in the final two matches of the session.
The Swedish pairing of Maja Stark and Linn Grant went 4 up after seven holes and wound up winning 3 and 2 against Rose Zhang and Jennifer Kupcho.
Then, in the only match that went beyond the 16th hole, Esther Henseleit and Leona Maguire — who were also never behind — completed a 1-up win over Andrea Lee and Lindy Duncan on No. 18.
The afternoon four-balls begin at 1:05 p.m. local time (1105 GMT).
Korda is one of 12 players in the American team this week but is carrying the expectations of a nation.
She delivered early and improved her Solheim Cup record to 11-5-1, the kind of points tally Tiger Woods wished he'd had in Ryder Cups.
“I always make the joke to Nelly — it’s so nice to be 30 yards ahead of where I would be on my own drive,” Corpuz said. “It just makes the hole so much easier.”
Korda and Corpuz combined for the first time in Spain in 2023, winning two points, and did so again in a winning U.S cause in Virginia the following year.
They were 1 down after the first hole here, after Woad poured in a 15-footer for birdie, but the Americans only lost one more hole in the rest of the match.
As for Maguire, she moved to a 9-3-1 record, the best by any European player who has played at least five matches.
The first tee is always the place to be in these big teams events and it lived up to its billing Friday inside the horseshoe-shaped grandstand containing around 3,000 spectators.
U.S. captain Angela Stanford danced onto the tee after emerging from the tunnel. Stark and Grant swayed their hips to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.” Duncan, a 35-year-old rookie who never expected to play a Solheim Cup, took video with her cell phone. Maguire teed off after chants of “We’ve got Maguire, USA is terrified!” and cheers for each of her practice swings.
“They’re living the dream,” European captain Anna Nordqvist said of the players, “and as a golfer it doesn’t get better than this.”
It was all very jovial, though, with respectful silence for each drive in front of a banner that read: “Dutch Courage. European Glory.”
The United States has an 11-7-1 advantage in a series that dates to 1990.
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