What if the US did not win the Solheim Cup?
How would have the media reacted to the fact that Nancy Lopez's two captains picks went a combined 0-4-2. (Beth Daniel - 0-1-2; Wendy Ward - 0-3-0)??
Luckily for Nancy, the US Team won. However, if they hadn't, then the media would have forever questioned her choices.
8 Comments:
On the bais that the media generally had little idea that this event was taking place...I think she would have got away with it.....
might ahve escaped your notice but we had US open tennis....NFL first week.....Cnadian Open golf...Formula 1 GP .....and in the UK, the final cricket test match......all taking up acres of the sporting press...Solheim Cup and women's golf just don't register!!!
The comment by jim62 reflects my earlier post about the "genius" who scheduled the Solheim Cup for this crowded sports weekend. Grrr...
On the substance, I think you raise a great point, though we might highlight in return that Nancy at least only played them each 3 times (did anyone play less?), and one of them got Annika in the singles.
Also, I wonder given all the rookies on the team (who did great), that the decision to pick veterans paid some benefits despite the poor records of the picks.
A related question is how did the European picks do?
1. Beth Daniel picked up a point (with 2 halves), so you can't question her pick at all. Natalie Gulbis credited Beth at the end of her singles match for her wisdom in telling her to forget about the scoreboard during the match. It worked. So credit Beth Daniel for 2 points.
2. As far as questioning Nancy, that's a silly question. They won, and I think in large part to Nancy's leadership and organized practices and team bonding, etc.
3. I agree that this weekend was the worst to pick. The LPGA did take a couple weeks off this summer, so maybe there was some wiggle room with the date.
On the other hand, you are all deceiving yourselves if you think that a less crowded sports weekend would have magically tranformed this event into a big TV viewing event. The Solheim Cup was on The Golf Channel, remember. (In the future, the Cup should strive for a major network.) So, in the end, I don't think having it on this past weekend was a big loss for the Cup. Had it been a major broadcast network, then it would be a different story. So who was the genius that scheduled it on this weekend: who cares?
I for one am glad it wasn't aired on a major network. The Golf Channel showed the whole tournament in its entirety. On CBS we might've gotten two hours each afternoon.
We certainly can question the Beth Daniel pick. She blew a win on the 17th and almost blew the half on the 18th in the foursome match with Creamer--and then she had the nerve to talk about Paula's missed putt, saying nothing about her great sand save on 18. In her next match Nancy paired her with Juli Inkster. So much for pairing her with young players to help them.
And then she advised Gulbis not to forget the scoreboard. Please explain to me why she needed to be on the team to be able to offer that advice.
Actually it seemed to me that there were already a lot of older veterans on the team before Beth Daniel was added. She made the 5th player over 40. How many players over 40 does one team need? The fans wanted to see Michelle Wie, and Nancy's picks dod not prove to Wie's fans that Nancy was right to leave her off the team.
It is interesting thast the coverage praised Nancy's decisions after the close of thematch, which assuredly would have taken a different turn had she not taken the cup.
As for coverage, on a less busy weekend, it is likely that it might have been picked up by a major network, but they would have cut coverage for Nascar at the end.
I live in Scotland...the coverage here was shown on one of Sky Sports 4 dedicated sports channels.....
had uninterrupted total coverage of the whole three days....
in reply to anonymous...re the non selection of Michelle Wie...
Solheim Cup is an event for professional golfers...Michelle is still an amateur....might explain her "exclusion".....and also that of Pressel..?
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