Americans One Behind Europeans after Saturday Morning Foursomes


The Americans had their best session of the 2013 Solheim Cup in Saturday morning's foursomes, winning two matches, halving a third and losing the fourth. The biennial competition is taking place at Colorado Golf Club in Parker, Colo.

The Europeans go into the afternoon's four-ball matches with a 6½ to 5½ lead. The Europeans, who won the 2011 matches at Killeen Castle in Ireland, need total 14 points to retain the Cup.

Entering the third session with a 5-3 deficit, it wasn't looking good early for the Americans as Sweden's Anna Nordqvist and Caroline Hedwall beat Morgan Pressel and Jessica Korda 2 and 1 in the opening match.

After winning the par-5 16th with a birdie, Nordqvist closed out the match in dramatic fashion, hitting a hole-in-one on the 187-yard par-3 17th that couldn't be equaled by the Americans.

"It's just an unbelievable shot," the 26-year-old said at greenside. "It was the right shot at the right time." Nordqvist has won two of her three matches, while Hedwall has won three points for the Europeans.

In the second match, Stacy Lewis and Paula Creamer eked out a 1-up win and a point for the Americans by beating Azahara Munoz and Karine Icher. No. 2-ranked Lewis and Creamer started off hot, going 4-up through 10 holes but the Europeans got the match back to all-square with a par and three birdies on the next four holes.

Munoz and Icher birdied the 17th to bring the match to all-square, but the Yanks birdied the 18th while their opponents made a hash of the par-4 closing hole.

The Americans logged their fifth point when, in Match 4, Michelle Wie and Brittany Lang beat Suzann Pettersen and Beatriz Recari 2 and 1. Pettersen, a stalwart for the Europeans, lost her first point of the Solheim Cup after going 2-0 Friday.

The third match, involving Catriona Matthew and Caroline Masson of Europe and Brittany Lincicome and Lizette Salas of the Yanks, ended in the first halve of the competition.

For updated scores, visit http://www.lpgascoring.com/public/TeamMatchLeaderboard.aspx?TournamentID=10001&RoundID=2.