CROMVOIRT, Netherlands – When U.S. captain Angela Stanford boarded the team bus on Saturday night carrying a bucket full of beers, she was greeted with a raucous applause by her players. The Solheim Cup might’ve been tied through four sessions, but thanks to Jennifer Kupcho’s late four-ball heroics, momentum had swung in the Americans’ favor. Stanford called the moment unprecedented. So, why not celebrate?
“She holed 120 feet of putts in two holes, like fair play,” said European assistant Mel Reid. “They should celebrate that.”
English rookie Lottie Woad added: “I mean, we’ve had beers on the bus every night, so it wasn’t really much difference. Our bus was really good energy; we could see theirs behind, and ours was more energy than theirs.”
Perhaps the only misstep by the U.S. was posting the footage on social media.
“I think it was probably misinterpreted a little bit,” added Reid, “but seeing them with beers like they’d won the Solheim Cup yesterday, we were aware of it. The Solheim Cup is supposed to be celebrated on a Sunday, not a Saturday.
“We’re just happy that we’re the ones now to take two crates of beer on the bus.”
What had been a back-and-forth Solheim Cup through two days turned in Europe’s favor quicker than the T-shirts that U.S. player Angel Yin was launching into the first-tee grandstands with an air gun just minutes before teeing off in Sunday’s third singles match against undefeated Linn Grant. (Yes, that happened.)
The final score, 15-13 in favor of the home team at Bernardus Golf, about an hour south of Amsterdam, didn’t quite depict the tenor of the day. Aided by a consistent rain and muddy conditions, Europe washed away the Americans’ hopes early, at one point leading in eight of the 12 games, including seven of the first eight, as the U.S. came out flat and with several star players tucked deep in the order for what Stanford explained as rest purposes.
“We needed a jolt like that,” Stanford said of Saturday’s dramatics as the matches kicked off Sunday morning.
Hours later, though, she admitted, “It did take a minute to come off because it was a pretty high high. … It’s tough because they (Europe) were playing so good. It was going to be tough.”
The U.S. just might’ve made its task a touch tougher. Great competitors already require little external motivation, but when they can latch onto even the tiniest morsel from the opposition, it can make a difference. The bus celebration didn’t spur Carlota Ciganda; her four-ball opponent Kupcho had already done more than enough.
Not only did Kupcho shout “Vamos!” after hooping her 90-footer for birdie at the 17th hole on Saturday evening, but afterward in her post-round press conference, Kupcho was asked about that and the shushing gesture she made earlier in the match.
“Carlota’s loud, so I can be loud back,” Kupcho said.
Whether Kupcho was justified or not, it didn’t matter. Ciganda drew Kupcho again in singles and wasted no time in quieting the confident American, winning four of the first five holes before ultimately putting the winning 15th point on the board a few hours later.
“I was really happy to see that I was playing against Kupcho,” Ciganda said. “She’s a fighter, I’m a fighter, and I told her, ‘Look, great playing.’ I mean, even yesterday what she did was amazing on 17 and 18. But today, I knew she had no chance. I was like, ‘I want to kill you.’”
CROMVOIRT, NETHERLANDS - SEPTEMBER 13: Carlota Ciganda of Team Europe hugs Jennifer Kupcho of Team United States after winning her match on the 16th green during the Sunday singles matches of the Solheim Cup 2026 at Bernardus Golf on September 13, 2026 in Cromvoirt, Netherlands. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
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Ciganda’s point was merely a formality, as minutes earlier on the adjacent 17th, where Kupcho had her moment less than 24 hours earlier, Woad rolled in a short par putt to earn a 2-and-1 victory over Auston Kim and, with Ciganda dormie, clinch a ninth Solheim Cup for the continent.
Woad, the top-ranked player on the European roster at seventh in the world, and eighth-ranked teammate Charley Hull entered Sunday having made the wrong kind of history, becoming the first two out of 43 players to play all four team sessions in a single Solheim Cup and fail to earn a full point. Even more significant, Nordqvist had stuck with her “Plan A” and sent them out together each time, only for them to go 0-3-1.
Woad said Saturday evening that she’d gladly lose all her matches if it still meant that Europe win the cup, yet she was still disappointed.
“I felt like I was playing good golf and not quite being rewarded,” Woad said.
But Nordqvist and her fellow assistants sat down Woad and Hull and informed them that they each ranked top four among players on both teams in total birdies made through four sessions. As a pair, Woad and Hull shot 18 under, while their opponents combined for 31 under.
“They just came up against absolute gladiators,” Reid said.
The response was epic. Hull didn’t lose a hole in the leadoff match against Megan Khang, one of Stanford’s questionable captain’s picks considering she’d not made a cut in over a year. Woad jumped 4 up at the turn before withstanding a brief, three-hole onslaught by Kim.
Grant then blitzed Yin, who wasn’t 100% after dealing with severe stomach issues for months. Yin had played just one tournament since June, and her rust was evident, as she was called upon only once in team play, earning a half-point in Friday four-balls alongside Yealimi Noh, who did most of the work.
Nordqvist got singles points from three of her four rookies – Woad, Natasia Nadaud (3-1) and Julia Lopez Ramirez – and a surprise point from Nanna Koerstz Madsen, who struggled to an 0-2 record before topping Allisen Corpuz, 2 and 1.
Though the U.S. won three of the final four matchups, the early damage had already been done with Stanford’s decision not to fully top load her order, a strategy that has worked well in past team events, most recently at last weekend’s Walker Cup, where Great Britain and Ireland’s best players took each of the first five matches to set the table for a record comeback victory in Ireland.
Stanford added that unlike previous Solheim Cups, the U.S. team was “missing some pieces” to their stats team, specifically those providing the Americans with real-time, strokes-gained data during practice and matches.
There were positives for the Americans, who in reality were just one point away from retaining. World No. 1 Nelly Korda won her match to cap a 2-1-1 week, though once again she didn’t go all five sessions and was, according to multiple people within the team, feeling a bit under the weather. Lauren Coughlin did play every frame, going 3-1-1, while Alison Lee joined Grant as the only 4-0 players. Lee staged the largest singles comeback in Solheim Cup history, rallying from 4 down against Esther Henseleit. Lee won five of the last seven holes to close out the 1-up win and get the first singles point on the board for the U.S.
“It gets really hard because what she did today was phenomenal, and she doesn’t get to walk away with the cup,” Stanford said of Lee. “Like, it doesn’t seem fair.”
As the anchor match finished on 18th hole, Nordqvist and the rest of her team walked down the fairway in one unified row, their arms around each other.
The theme of the week had been unity, and behind the leadership of their quiet but gritty captain, they had won this together.
And now, it was time for them to celebrate. Lopez Ramirez already had acquired a bottle of champagne and quickly began dousing her teammates with the bubbly.
“We love beating the Americans, and this is what we are here for, so I may have a couple of drinky poos tonight,” Reid said, having already cracked open a Heineken.
The two crates of beers were unlikely to make it to the bus.