Dottie Pepper remembers the last hole of the 1990 Centel Classic like it was yesterday. She was stymied behind a 150-yard bush and had to pitch out and get up and down from a little over 100 yards. The 25-year-old Pepper drained the 7-footer for par and felt like she’d won the event. Beth Daniel actually claimed the title, but that par allowed Pepper to edge Danielle Ammaccapane for the eighth and final spot on the inaugural Solheim Cup team.
It secured her place in history.
The 1990 Solheim Cup was held in November at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando, Florida, and put together in a few short months. While the first one was a sparsely attended, lopsided affair – with the Americans beating the Europeans 11 1/2 to 4 1/2 – it didn’t take long for the biennial event to explode.
The 16 players on those first teams combined to win 261 titles on the LPGA. Kathy Whitworth team’s consisted of five Hall of Famers, including Pat Bradley, Beth Daniel, Nancy Lopez, Betsy King and Patty Sheehan along with Rosie Jones, Cathy Gerring and Pepper.
Mickey Walker’s squad consisted of the four winningest players in LET history: Laura Davies, Dale Reid, Marie-Laure de Lorenzi and Trish Johnson, along with major champions Helen Alfredsson, Liselotte Neumann, Alison Nicholas and LPGA Rookie of the Year Pam Wright.
Here’s a collection of some of their memories from the star-studded event:
Patty Sheehan, USA
“We all looked at the Ryder Cup and went ‘Wow, this is what we’re going to do, this is the type of thing we’re doing,’ and that all seemed so competitive and just otherworldly, to me at least. And so I just sort of looked around at these players, going wow, this is a really cool thing to be a part of. I look up to every single one of those players for different reasons.
“It was really sort of a moment to just sit there and take a couple of breaths in and feel the enormity of what was coming in the next few days.”
Laura Davies, England
“We weren’t expcted to win. We were up against what would eventually turn out to be a bunch of Hall of Famers, already Hall of Famers. We were a bunch of Europeans who had not been on the LPGA, maybe four or five of us, and we’re going up against established world stars.
“We weren’t worried that we lost. We were worried that maybe we got beat so easy that all of a sudden maybe this wasn’t a great idea. But then of course we won at Dalmahoy two years later. I think that was important not just for us, but for the Solheim Cup. Because if you keep getting trounced year in and year out, they’d have quickly probably tried to bring in some international players and it never would’ve been the same again.”
Rosie Jones, USA
“There was a lot of personality on that team, believe me. Everybody had a lot of success on the LPGA. There were feisty players, and there were even more feisty players on that team. … We were all just young pups, most of us.
“I think there was no fear on that team.”
Dottie Pepper, USA
“We got there and realized that the Europeans were way more prepared from a clothing standpoint than we were. They showed up with caddie uniforms, which we had not even anticipated at all. (Nancy) Lopez, myself and Betsy (King) were all sponsored by Izod at the time. We got on the horn to Izod and they overnighted uniforms in for all the caddies.”
Helen Alfredsson, Sweden
“I remember Alison Nicholas coming into my room and saying “Oh my God, have you seen all the presents? Every time you opened a closet or a drawer there were more.”
Alison Nicholas, England
“Nancy Lopez, Beth Daniel, Betsy King, they’re legends, aren’t they? They’d all won loads and loads of tournaments and most of us had heard of them and followed them. You’re thinking crikey, they’ve got really good records. They were all very intimidating really.”
Cathy Gerring, USA
“(Dottie) was just as intense a player as I had ever played with in my life. That’s what made her so good – she was just a competitor – I can tell you.
“There was a par 5 on the back side and were were playing alternate shot and Dottie hit the tee shot and I said, ‘Dot, where do you want me to lay up to?’ Because it was not a reachable par 5. So she gave me a yardage, it was probably a full sand wedge. I pretty much laid it up perfect for her.
“Well, she chunked it, and it went about 40 yards. The pin was up front, it was downwind – that is one of the most difficult shots in golf, downwind to a front pin. I probably had 35 or 40 yards.
“I’m not going to use the curse word that she used, but she said ‘Get it anywhere on the green.’ I hit, not a bad shot, but it was probably 20 to 25 feet and you know what happened next.
“She made it.”
Beth Daniel, USA
“We were playing foursomes, and Betsy and I were way up in our match and we came to a par 3 and it was her turn to hit off the tee. So Betsy and I are discussing and she’s like, ‘I’m in between clubs, what do you think?’ The pin was kind of back on the green and we’re talking and we both decided we’re fired up and playing well, I think you should hit less club.
“We walked up on the tee and Kathy says everybody’s been short on this hole, so go with the longer club. We said, ‘OK thank you,’ and she walked off the tee.
“Betsy and I looked at each other and said hit the shorter club. Betsy hit it to about 2 feet.
“We never told Whitworth that, in all those years, we never told her.”
Pat Bradley, USA
“If it was a rout every year, it might have been different. The European players … I give them so much credit. They came out and said we are not bowing. We’re going to be a part of this and we’re going to fight just as hard as you Americans.”
Trish Johnson, England
“I don’t think we had any expectations whatsoever. We had Laura (Davies), Alfie (Helen Alfredsson) and Lotta (Neumann), who were kind of recognized as world-class players, and then there was the rest of us. That’s how I saw it.”
Nancy Lopez, USA
“It was a big deal, but yet it was brand new. And thank God for the Solheims … they really made it a special event for these players. If you asked a player what her goal was, it was to make the Solheim Cup. … When someone asks me what my greatest accomplishment on the tour was, I always say being captain of the Solheim Cup team and winning in 2005. I won a lot of tournaments, but that was the one that – I worked really hard to be a great captain – bringing the team together.”
Betsy King, USA
“It’s interesting because I was on the board at the time, and when we were discussing getting the tournament going, we wanted to make sure that it didn’t interfere with the regular season. When it started, the first one was in November and then (the second) was in October.
“Because at the time, we had a pretty full schedule, and we didn’t want to lose a regular tournament to add the Solheim Cup. … Obviously, we weren’t looking at it to be a big event.”
Pam Wright, Scotland
“I just feel honored to have been part of have been part of any of them, frankly. The first one, when you think back how long it is, it’s a half a lifetime for me. … The way the players play now is so different, but the passion was the same, the drive and desire to win your point and to win as a team. The team camaraderie is lifelong. You never lose that.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: LPGA stars reminisce on the inaugural 1990 Solheim Cup, a humble start to the showcase of women’s golf
