Location | 2017: West Des Moines, Iowa, USA |
---|---|
Established | 1990 |
Course(s) | 2017: Des Moines Golf and Country Club, North Course |
Par | 2017: TBA |
Length | 2017: TBA |
Tour(s) |
Ladies European Tour LPGA Tour |
Format | Match play |
Prize fund | None |
Month played | August or September |
United States | |
2015 Solheim Cup |
The Solheim Cup is a biennial golf tournament for professional women golfers contested by teams representing Europe and the United States. It is named after the Norwegian-American golf club manufacturer Karsten Solheim, who was a driving force behind its creation.
The inaugural Cup was held in 1990, and the event was staged in even number years until 2002, alternating years with the Ryder Cup (the equivalent men's event). As part of the general reshuffling of team golf events after the one-year postponement of the 2001 Ryder Cup following the September 11 attacks, the Solheim Cup switched to odd numbered years beginning in 2003.
The current holders are the U.S. who won at Golf Club St. Leon-Rot in Baden-Württemberg, Germany in 2015. The next contest will be at the Des Moines Golf and Country Club in West Des Moines, Iowa from 18 to 20 August 2017.
The cup is played over three days. Since 2002, there have been 28 matches—eight foursomes, eight four-balls and 12 singles on the final day. This is the same format as the Ryder Cup. Before 1996, and also in 2000, the Solheim Cup used a similar, but abbreviated format.
The U.S. team is selected by a points system, with American players on the LPGA Tour receiving points for each top-twenty finish on tour. Through the 2013 event, U.S. citizens born outside the country were ineligible for consideration; beginning in 2015, eligibility for Team USA was expanded to include many more categories of (female) U.S. citizens. For the European team, up to 2005, seven players were selected on a points system based on results on the Ladies European Tour (LET). This allowed top European players who competed mainly on the LPGA Tour to be selected to ensure that the European team was competitive. Since 2007, only the top five players from the LET qualify and another four are selected on the basis of the Women's World Golf Rankings. This reflects the increasing dominance of the LPGA Tour, where almost all top European players spend most of their time. In addition, each team has a number of "captain's picks", players chosen at the discretion of the team captains, regardless of their point standings, though in practice the captain's picks are often the next ranking players.