Europe captain Anna Nordqvist says her priority is to take away the noise surrounding Solheim Cup week and give her players the freedom to perform as Europe prepare to reclaim the trophy at Bernardus.
Anna Nordqvist has spent almost 20 months preparing to captain Europe at Bernardus. Now the Solheim Cup has arrived, her priority is surprisingly simple: remove the noise and create an environment in which 12 very different players can perform their best.
Four rookies, some of Europe’s most experienced Solheim Cup players and one of the game’s most individual characters will come together under Anna Nordqvist at Bernardus this week.
The European captain has no intention of trying to make them all behave in the same way.
Nordqvist’s first Solheim Cup captaincy has been built around preparation. She and vice-captains Caroline Hedwall, Mel Reid and Anne van Dam have spent months considering everything from potential pairings to the team environment, but the philosophy emerging from the European camp is about creating as little distraction as possible once the players arrive.
Nordqvist described it as creating “as little noise around the players as possible”, allowing them to feel comfortable enough to be themselves.
That could be particularly important for a European team containing four first-time Solheim Cup players.
Europe’s rookies bring a ‘breath of fresh air’
Lottie Woad, Mimi Rhodes, Nastasia Nadaud and Julia López Ramírez will all experience a Solheim Cup first tee for the first time this week.
Nordqvist sees their presence as a strength rather than something Europe needs to protect.
She described the younger generation as “a breath of fresh air”, pointing to the increasingly high standard of players arriving on tour in their early twenties.
Woad may officially be a rookie, Nordqvist said, but “she certainly doesn’t play like one or feel like one”. She highlighted Nadaud’s ability to make birdies, Rhodes’ Curtis Cup experience and the personality and considerable driving speed of López Ramírez.
The challenge is to give them the confidence to express those qualities when the atmosphere changes dramatically on Friday morning.
Nordqvist knows there is only so much a captain can do to prepare someone for that moment.
“You need to experience it and you kind of have to get your own feel for it,” she said.
Letting Charley prepare like Charley
Perhaps the clearest example of Nordqvist’s player-first approach is Charley Hull.
Hull arrived at Bernardus later than some of her teammates because the European captaincy team decided she would prepare better at home in England.
Nordqvist has played alongside Hull in numerous European teams and said she has noticed her increasingly embracing the Solheim Cup environment.
A minor misunderstanding over Tuesday’s practice time led to Hull reaching the tee later than her teammates, prompting Reid to quickly dismiss any suggestion that there was more to the story.
Hull had been the first player to bed the previous night, Reid said, and the first on the team bus in the morning. She had simply thought the tee time was five minutes later and, characteristically, proved difficult to drag away from the practice range.
More significant was Nordqvist’s explanation of why Hull had been allowed to prepare differently.
She wanted every player to have the opportunity to prepare in the way that suited them best. For Hull, that meant staying in England longer before travelling to Bernardus.
Nordqvist said the seven-time Solheim Cup player had arrived “buzzing about teeing it up this week”.
It is a small detail, but one that says plenty about how Europe intend to manage 12 individual personalities within one team.
No attempt to manufacture a European advantage
Nordqvist is taking a similarly pragmatic approach to Bernardus.
As home captain, she has been able to provide feedback on the course setup, but rejected the idea that Europe should try to engineer conditions specifically to disadvantage the Americans.
Most of the players compete against one another on the LPGA Tour throughout the year and Nordqvist sees little fundamental difference between the games of the two teams.
Instead, the focus has been on creating good match-play holes and considering how pin positions might work differently for fourballs and foursomes.
Her priority, she said, is to “showcase the women’s golf” rather than manufacture an artificial European advantage.
It fits with the broader philosophy of her captaincy.
Nordqvist admits she came into the role without previous experience of leading a team. Rather than attempting to become a different personality because she is captain, she has surrounded herself with people she trusts and concentrated on organisation, preparation and calm.
By Sunday evening she wants her players and caddies to feel they did everything they could, enjoyed doing it and would want to experience it all again.
Europe would undoubtedly prefer that feeling to come with the Solheim Cup back in their hands.
But Nordqvist’s route towards achieving it is becoming increasingly clear: prepare meticulously, remove the distractions and then let the players be themselves.
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