The Solheim Cup is a biennial golf tournament for professional women golfers contested by teams representing Europe and the United States. It is named after the Norwegian-American golf club manufacturer Karsten Solheim, who was a driving force behind its creation. The inaugural Cup was held in 1990, and the event was staged in even number years until 2002, alternating years with the Ryder Cup. As part of the general reshuffling of team golf events after the one-year postponement of the 2001 Ryder Cup following the September 11 attacks, the Solheim Cup switched to odd numbered years beginning in 2003. The United States teams have won the cup the most times, with 10 wins compared with Europe's 6. The current holders are Europe, who won at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland in 2019. The next contest will be at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio in 2021.
Format
The cup is played over three days. Since 2002, there have been 28 matches—eight foursomes and eight four-balls played on days 1 and 2, and 12 singles on the final day. This format is also used in the Ryder Cup. Before 1996, and also in 2000, the Solheim Cup used a similar, but abbreviated format. There were 8 players in each team in 1990, 10 in 1992 and 1994 and 12 in the contests since then.
Team qualification and selection
The U.S. team is selected by a points system, with American players on the LPGA Tour receiving points for each top-twenty finish on tour. Through the 2013 event, U.S. citizens born outside the country were ineligible for consideration; beginning in 2015, eligibility for Team USA was expanded to include many more categories of U.S. citizens. For the European team, up to 2005, seven players were selected on a points system based on results on the Ladies European Tour. This allowed top European players who competed mainly on the LPGA Tour to be selected to ensure that the European team was competitive. Since 2007, only the top five players from the LET qualify and another four are selected on the basis of the Women's World Golf Rankings. This reflects the increasing dominance of the LPGA Tour, where almost all top European players spend most of their time. In addition, each team has a number of "captain's picks", players chosen at the discretion of the team captains, regardless of their point standings, though in practice the captain's picks are often the next ranking players.
Captains
Team captains are typically recently retired professional golfers with Solheim Cup playing experience, chosen for their experience playing on previous Cup teams and for their ability to lead a team.
Results
In the sixteen competitions through 2019, the United States leads the series 10 to 6.
Future venues
located in Toledo, Ohio will host the Cup in 2021; it has previously hosted four U.S. Opens, two PGA Championships, and two U.S. Senior Opens.
