Golf’s biggest women’s rivalry heads to a new country this fall. Team USA and Team Europe have squared off nineteen times since 1990. Every single edition has come down to whichever side handles the pressure of match play better over three days. This September, the Netherlands hosts the competition for the first time. A course nobody on either roster has real tournament experience on adds a wrinkle neither team has dealt with in years.
Where to bet through US sportsbooks
A rivalry this rare and this intense tends to pull in serious betting interest the moment lines open. Wagers go through US sportsbooks, and markets typically cover match outcomes, session results, and outright winner odds. This is available well before the first tee shot on Friday morning.
Team USA’s the defending champion here, having won the last edition 15.5-12.5. That result shapes early odds more than it probably should. Match play doesn’t care much about history once Sunday’s singles matches start, and this format has flipped on late momentum plenty of times before.
A new venue, a familiar rivalry
This year marks the 20th Solheim Cup, running September 11-13. The venue’s new course: Bernardus Golf in Cromvoirt, a heathland course designed by Kyle Phillips. Nobody involved has played it in a Solheim Cup setting before. It’s the tournament’s first stop in the Netherlands and its return to mainland Europe after 2023’s edition in Spain. Anna Nordqvist captains Team Europe. Angela Stanford leads Team USA, her first time doing so.
How the competition works
Twelve players per side, three days, match play throughout – the format that mirrors the men’s Ryder Cup almost exactly. Friday and Saturday each bring four foursome matches in the morning and four fourball matches in the afternoon. Eight players from each team compete in every session. Sunday flips the format entirely: all 24 players go head-to-head in singles matches, one point on the line in every single pairing.
A rivalry with real history
Team USA’s won this thing 11 times since it started in 1990. Europe’s taken it seven times. One tie sits on the books, too. The difference doesn’t sound like much in plain discussion, but there’s a real edge for the Americans on paper.
Whatever the results have been so far, it hasn’t stopped Europe from pulling off some genuinely tense upsets over the years. Team golf tends to reward momentum over history once the crowd gets loud, so the results could favor anyone irrespective of what the previous results have been.
Getting to know the rosters
Full rosters won’t lock in until a few weeks before the event, built out from a mix of points lists, world rankings, and captains’ picks on both sides. Team Europe requires LET membership, filling its 12 spots through a combination of points leaders, top-ranked players, and captain selections.
Team USA runs a similar system through the LPGA Tour. Watching that roster take shape over the summer is part of the buildup, and it’s also a good moment to think about women in sports more broadly. This event sits alongside a handful of others that have genuinely grown the visibility of women’s professional golf over the past few decades.
Planning around the tournament
Back-to-back morning and afternoon sessions on Friday and Saturday make for a packed watch schedule. Sunday’s all-day singles format doesn’t leave much breathing room either.
Deciding how to spend time wisely across the weekend is the key here. You would want to catch both sessions live and then decide the pairings that actually matter. That ends up being the difference between watching the whole event unfold and missing the shot that decided it.
What’s at stake in the Netherlands
Team USA arrives looking to defend its title on foreign soil. Now, this is something that has proven difficult historically for whichever team is playing away from home. A first-ever Dutch crowd adds an unknown variable that neither team has really dealt with before.
Combine all of the above factors with a course that nobody on either roster has significant tournament experience on. This edition carries more genuine uncertainty than most recent Solheim Cups. That’s part of what makes it worth watching from the very first foursomes match on Friday.
