Welcome to our weekly gambling-tips column, where we share our favorite bets for the upcoming action. This time around, we turn our attention to the women’s game and the Solheim Cup, which gets underway on Friday, in Spain. (If you’re also following the men’s game this week, we point your attention to Chirp, a free-to-play mobile platform that features a range of games with enticing prizes, giving fans all kinds of ways to engage in the action without risking any money.)
Here we go again. A fiery biennial team competition is back on European soil, where Team USA hasn’t had much luck of late.
The Ryder Cup? Nope. That’s later this month. First up is the Solheim Cup, at Finca Cortesin, in Spain, featuring the best female players from the United States and Europe for three days of match play infused with patriotic fervor.
Europe has triumphed in the last two meetings, and the Americans haven’t won in Europe since 2015. Can Team USA get things back on track? And can Team GOLF.com make some winning plays? We’re feeling confident about these picks.
1. Team USA to lift the trophy
Even
American women have sparkled this year on the game’s biggest stages, claiming three of the five majors, including the most recent (the AIG Women’s Open) on European soil. That victory went to Lilia Vu (her second major title of 2023), who will lead a team deepened by a mix of stalwart veterans and emerging stars, highlighted by red-hot Megan Khang and rookie phenom Rose Zhang. With a tie, the Europeans would retain the Cup. So Team USA will need to win outright on points. In a year in which so much else has gone the Americans’ way, even money says that they are up to the task.
2. Top European points scorer
Charley Hull +600
Ten years have passed since Great Britain’s Hull became the youngest player ever to appear in the Solheim Cup, where she announced herself as a match-play force by dusting Paula Creamer 5&4 in singles. Her competitive fire has hardly dimmed. One of the game’s most openly intense players, Hull has the perfect disposition for a cauldron of this kind, and she heads into Spain having played her best this year in the biggest moments, including runner-up finishes in the final two majors of the season. That European Team captain Suzann Pettersen will likely deploy Hull in every session gives her all the more chance to rack up points.
3. Top American points scorer
Megan Khang +750
That the Solheim Cup has not been kind to Khang (she has played on two losing teams and notched only one win along the way) says far less about Khang’s game than it does about the vagaries of match play. The 25-year-old has long been regarded as a soaring talent. And this year, she more than lived up to that billing, claiming five top 10s and her first LPGA win. She heads to Spain in superb form, her mature game matched by an ebullient personality that makes her a good partner for anyone.
