Charlottesville’s Coughlin goes unbeaten to help clinch Solheim Cup for Team USA

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Lauren Coughlin was standing on the 11th hole and 3-down to Sweden’s Maja Stark in the final round of the Solheim Cup on Sunday as the Europeans were making a charge. It became clear that the match was tightening and that every point was going to matter.

Coughlin, a former star golfer on the UVA women’s golf team, was playing in her home state (she lives in Charlottesville with her husband, Jon Pond, a former UVA football player), in front of lots of her supporters. To say the least, there was immense pressure.

USA team captain Stacy Lewis was at the tee box and obviously was concerned,  even though Coughlin, a rookie on the team, had started the event with a perfect 3-0-0 record, only the third player in Solheim history to start 3-0-0 and to finish off her opponent prior to reaching the 17th tee box in each match.

Coughlin calmed her captain’s nerves, telling Lewis that, “I fight, so don’t worry.”

And fight, she did.

The 31-year-old Coughlin birdied three of the next four holes to even the match and fought down the home stretch for a tie that gave the Americans a half point (USA stood at 14 points with her tie), clinching at least a tie for the Cup. Turned out, her teammates finished the job as America won 15.5 to 12.5 and brought the Solheim Cup home for the first time since 2017.

“Terry (Coughlin’s caddy Terry McNamara) and I have talked about my story and my background a lot, and pretty much the whole time we’ve been working together,” Coughlin said after the victory. “He keeps telling me how that’s what I do best is fight, and so I told him today what I do best is fight, and so I was going to keep going until the match was over.”

Coughlin is a fighter. She was a walk-on at UVA and finished her career as an ACC individual champion. She has been fighting for years, refusing to give up on her dreams, and finally broke into the LPGA winner’s circle this season, having a banner year on that Tour. No way she was going to go down easily against the Europeans on Sunday.

“I don’t give up on a round, ever,” Coughlin said. “As long as I’m still in it, I’m going to keep playing.

“So I kind of just kept pushing and eventually started hitting shots how I normally do, and finally started making some putts at the end.”

She finished the tournament with a 3-0-1 record, which ties an American rookie record. Michelle Wie went 3-0-1 in 2009 and Nelly Korda did likewise in 2019.

Until Sunday’s singles play, Coughlin never made it past the 16th hole, downing opponents 3&2, 3&2 and 4&3.

On Sunday, the Virginia native battled Stark on the back nine with birdies at No. 11, 12 and 14. Her 15-foot birdie on 18, which would have clinched the Cup for the Americans, came up just inches short, forcing Stark to make a six-footer for par for the tie and the half point.

“It was my first Solheim so I don’t really have anything else to compare it to, but it was an amazing week,” Coughlin said of the experience. “I wouldn’t change anything. I had an absolute blast with everybody out here, the caddies, my teammates, captains, our families that were around. It was a very special week.”

A very special week to cap a very special year in the life of a fighter.