Charlottesville’s Coughlin tees it up this morning at Solheim Cup

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Forgive Lauren Coughlin if she’s feeling a little nervous early Friday morning when she tees off in the Solheim Cup competition at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Manassas.

Coughlin, who lives in Charlottesville, will team with Rose Zhang in the Friday foursomes pairing against Celine Boutier and Abane Valenzuela at 7:17 a.m. (Golf Channel). For Couglin, a former ACC champion for Virginia, today is a dream come true.

While climbing toward the top of the LPGA Tour rankings this season and entering the Solheim Cup as one of the world’s hottest golfers, one of Coughlin’s major goals for the year was to make the U.S. Solheim Cup team. Not only did she make the team, but after her success, she is expected to be one of the leaders for the Americans.

Coughlin says she doesn’t shy away from the expectations.

“It’s something I’ve talked with Terry [McNamara], my caddie, about, just embracing it, but also doing my best to kind of stay in our bubble when we can, because that’s what we do really well is stay in our bubble and our process and play good golf and communicate and work really well together.

“So just trying to do that while also being a good teammate is kind of the only things that I’m really trying to focus on.”

Coughlin has mentioned several times this week that some of her friends and others who will be coming to RTJ for the event have never seen her play before, particularly since she’s been on the LPGA Tour, so that will add to the excitement of the event and playing for her country.

“Ticket-wise, it was actually a lot of my friends just bought tickets; didn’t even ask me,” she said this week when asked about the support she will be getting this weekend. “So I think I’m going to have about 15 a day, so nothing too crazy, but I’ve had a lot of people reach out saying that they were going to be here in one form or another.”

Coughlin, who has visited RTJ several times this year in anticipation of the Solheim competition, said it’s convenient for her and many of her friends because the course is straight up Rt. 29 from Charlottesville.

“It’s just an hour and 10 minutes from my house,” she said. “You go to that light and turn left and go about 65 miles and there’s my house, so that’s pretty awesome.”

Lauren Coughlin making her fairy tale Solheim Cup debut in front of a home crowd 🫶✨ pic.twitter.com/R0nAw9nSHm

— Solheim Cup U.S. Team 🇺🇸 (@SolheimCupUSA) September 12, 2024

Being a member of the team is quite the badge of honor for the former Wahoo, who has overcome lots of adversity, but never gave up on her dream of becoming a successful pro.

“Yeah, just being so close to our nation’s capital, this is my first time getting to represent my country — not in junior golf, amateur career, nothing,” Coughlin said. “So the fact that my first one is kind of so close to home but also so close to D.C., our nation’s capital, is pretty special.”

Being a rookie on the U.S. team, she’s trying to learn the ropes from some of the Solheim vets.

“I thought I was pretty prepared for it, but I wasn’t,” Coughlin said. “How busy I was going to be this week. It’s been awesome and I’m just excited to get Friday going.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever played in a crowd that big before and I’m very excited. I’m excited for my friends and family that are coming, some of whom have never gotten to see me play golf in person.”

Coughlin is acquainted with RTJ, having visited four times prior to this week’s practices. She came in March, the week before her Evian tournament win, the week before her Scottish Open win, and the week before the Canadian Open triumph.

“I do like the golf course,” she said. “It just so happened one of my friends wanted to come play, so I was like – he had never played, so I was like, all right, I need to go see it, so I’ll come play. That’s what I did before Evian.

“Then Terry (her caddie) wanted to come see it, so before Canada, he came up and spent a day with me in Charlottesville and came up here. Then Allisen was coming before Scotland, so I was just kind of like, so she didn’t have to kind of play by herself, I came up as well and played again.

“It’s a great course and I feel like I know it pretty well now at this point. So a lot of what I’m focusing on is just getting used to the green speeds and the firmness and all that type of stuff, whereas I feel like I already know my lines and everything that I want.”

One of the most exciting things for Lauren this season has been adding McNamara on her bag. McNamara was on the bag for a huge portion of Anika Sorenstam’s domination of women’s golf. She is soaking up all the knowledge she can from the storied caddie.

“It’s his 10th Solheim, so yeah, we’ve been talking about it a lot, especially leading up to it,” Coughlin said of their association. “There’s not really a moment that he’s never been in, so he’s very easy to lean on.

“Just little things. Again, just how busy this week was going to be outside of golf and just try to embrace it as much as you can and enjoy it because it’s the best week of the year, best event you’ll play in ever in your career.”