Tour Confidential: Solheim Cup preview, golf’s next made-for-TV match

Check in every week for the unfiltered opinions of our writers and editors as they break down the hottest topics in the sport, and join the conversation by tweeting us at @golf_com. This week, we preview the Solheim Cup, discuss golf’s newly announced made-for-TV match and share our picks for the best deals in golf. And if you’re looking for our writers’ thoughts on last week’s Presidents Cup captain’s picks, you can read up on that here.

The 19th playing of the Solheim Cup gets underway Friday to Sunday at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va. Last year, the U.S. and Europe tied for the first time in the event’s history, allowing Europe to keep the Cup for the third straight meeting. Who wins this year, and why?

Josh Sens, senior writer (@joshsens): Team USA. Partly thanks to home-crowd advantage, but also because– with Lexi playing in what is very likely her last, and Korda coming off an epic season, and the team having a nice balance of youthful fire and experience–it just feels like the way the spirits of the game would want it scripted.

Sean Zak, senior writer (@sean_zak): Wow, Josh Sens — big spirits guy! Put your tarot cards down and look at who is playing well. As much as Charley Hull, Esther Hensleit and a few Euros may be flashing at the moment, the best player is on Team USA, and so is the second-best player in Lilia Vu. Andrea Lee played great in St. Andrews and Rose Zhang is on the cusp of another great run herself. Not to mention the dawgs that are Lauren Coughlin and Ally Ewing. Team USA is going to win, and I fear it may not be close. 

Sens: Sorry. I promise to ditch the ‘shrooms before our next roundtable and stick strictly to shot data. 

Zephyr Melton, assistant editor (@zephyrmelton): I like the Euros to continue their dominance. The Americans may have some solid form, but that hasn’t helped them much the last few times around. When the lights shine the brightest in these team events, the Europeans always seem to come up clutch.

Last year it was Spain’s Carlota Ciganda who stole the show, finishing 4-0 and beating Nelly Korda 2 and 1 in singles play. Who will be the most important player for each side come next week, and who will be the event’s MVP?

Sens: For additional feel-good purposes, I’d like to say Lexi. But I’ve got a sneaky sense about captain’s pick Jennifer Kupcho, in a fiery bounce-back from her rough showing in Spain. (The caveat is that records in this format can be deceptive, as they’re largely dependent on how both your partner and your opponents play. For good reason, the MVP is often the lead point earner, who isn’t always the player who performed the best or meant the most to their team)

Zak: Most important? Lilia Vu. She’s capable of winning five matches, and is in good enough form to do it. She went 1-3 last year, during the same season where she won two majors. That’s not cutting it. MVP is going to be Nelly Korda, who will play five matches and be favored in every one of them. She’s on the right path back to dominance after a weird summer, and it may all click this week. 

Melton: Gimme Leona Maguire from Team Europe. She’s had an uneven 2024 thus far, but she’s been an absolute stud in this event the last two playings. I like her to continue that trend and improve on her 7-2-1 Solheim Cup record. As far as the Americans go, it’ll be tough for them to come away victorious unless Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu play well.

Golf’s next made-for-TV match will see Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler face off against Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in December in Las Vegas. What do you think of this matchup? And will the PGA Tour vs. LIV angle help with ratings?

Sens: It better help with the ratings because, really, is there any other reason for the match? This is designed to feed directly off golf’s civil war, and –outside of the majors, with a deal between the two tours nowhere in sight—it’s as close as the two circuits are going to get to giving people what they want. It helps, of course, that you’ve got four mega-names with lots of subplots/tensions in their relationships. But more than anything, this is an extension of the ongoing battle in the men’s pro game. Fans and media alike will assign all kinds of fabricated meaning to it as well, using the results as some kind of proof of which tour is more worthy. Birdies will abound. Ratings will be high. And people who already have a lot of money will make more of it by entertaining the masses with an event full of manufactured ‘meaning’. A perfect confection for our times.

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Zak: It really is a compelling matchup, putting two of the Tour’s three best against two of LIV Golf’s best. You’ve got Mr. Entertainer in Bryson, Mr. Jock in Brooks, Mr. Worldwide in Rory and Mr. Best-Since-Tiger in Scottie. It’s as compelling a product as you can field without the names Woods, Mickelson and Spieth. I’m sure it will be marketed as a war of sorts, but I hope that isn’t the case. Because these guys don’t dislike each other. I hope it’s a proving ground for many things. Ultimately, it’s probably just 12 or 18 holes of fun match play. 

Melton: I’m certainly intrigued by the event, and having a LIV-PGA Tour angle should do a great job adding hype to the match. Will that be enough to generate some much-needed high ratings? I’m dubious.

Does the PGA Tour vs. LIV tie hint that the sides might be coming closer together on a deal? Or at least learning how to co-exist? How valuable might mini treaties like this be for the future of pro golf?

Sens: Does anyone, even the main actors themselves, have any idea how far or close they are from the deal? With so many moving parts and parties to appease, I get the sense even those directly involved aren’t sure what a final deal would look like. Meantime, a match like this does seem like a search for ways to profitably coexist. Purists might not see it as a great sign for pro golf, but if you look at the game purely as an entertainment product, it strikes me as a savvy way to go.

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Zak: Let’s call this a mini-treaty then. I think it’s valuable in the sense that ratings will be improved from the last match: a skins game featuring Rory vs. Lexi Thompson vs. Max Homa vs. Rose Zhang. I think it’s valuable to put LIV Golfers on the same playing field as Tour stars in the month of December (when they might normally be absent from public eye). I think it’s valuable to do it all in a non-major championship setting, too. Will it bring any “nos” from the boardroom closer to “yesses”? I don’t really think so. 

Melton: I’m a bit exhausted analyzing every little thing in golf in the context of the Tour vs. LIV battle. The truth is no one knows what’s coming next other than a select few on the ins of the negotiations. I’m not putting too much stock in this event being a harbinger of things to come.

Speaking of LIV Golf, it released its dates and venues for the first four tournaments of 2025, and while all of them will be played internationally, they also all will be played during the same weeks as some of the PGA Tour’s biggest events — the WM Phoenix Open, Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational and Players Championship. Why would LIV Golf schedule these to compete directly with the Tour? Does it matter?

Sens: On the face of it, you could read it as a flex by LIV, especially going up against the hard-partying Phoenix Open, which is probably the closest the Tour offers to the atmospherics of a LIV event. But I don’t think it’s worth assigning too much meaning to any of it, other than to underscore that LIV is soldiering on, propelled by an endless budget, and that those dates on those venues fit well enough. As a serious competitor for the Tour’s main audience, it doesn’t seem much more than so much spit into the wind.

Zak: LIV can’t compete with the Tour for eyeballs, but I suppose it can try to put a dent in the ratings the Tour is most proud of? It can also stage the best events it can and produce social clips of players drinking beers out of shoes during weeks where the PGA Tour is cool, calm and relaxed at Riviera. It won’t matter, ultimately, to field tournaments during these weeks because the international time zones where LIV will be playing means they won’t actually compete directly. And at the end of the day, there’s about 10- to 15 golfers at LIV who fans really want to watch. And there are at least twice to three times that on the PGA Tour. 

Melton: Truth be told, it doesn’t really matter when LIV schedules their events as it relates to Tour events. While Tour ratings might be down, they still dwarf the number of eyeballs drawn by LIV. I’m sure there’s some deeper meaning to this scheduling decision, but ultimately it doesn’t change the fact that LIV doesn’t move the needle. 

Last week, we released our first-ever list of America’s best golf courses you can play for $100 or less. What’s the best course under this criteria — whether it’s on this list or not — that you ever played?

Sens: Since I just made this case on our site on Friday, I’m going to have to stick with George Wright, just outside Boston. A great Donald Ross-designed muni under the care of a miracle-worker superintendent who has made the absolute most of a minimal maintenance budget. It’s a great walk and an entertaining challenge in a green space that gets you far away from the urban bustle, even though it’s less than 8 miles from downtown.

Zak: It is difficult to think of a better golf course for $35 than The Aiken Golf Club, in Aiken, S.C. It’s so simple and so good. Drivable par-4s, long par-3s, pinestraw, tight lies, firm greens, tall pines and elevation changes. And all a 35-minute drive from Augusta, Ga. If you’re bringing the clubs on a Masters trip in early April, you better not miss this one. 

Melton: Zak is spot on in his assessment of Aiken. I played it for the first time this spring and absolutely loved it. As far as the best deals up in my neck of the woods, it’s hard to beat the $75 green fee for residents of NY at Bethpage Black. Being able to tee it up on a major championship and future Ryder Cup host for less than $100 is an unbelievable bargain.