But those pics will show up soon enough. After all, both picks seem like no-brainers to me. Scottish-born Catriona is the logical choice to head the European team at Gleneagles in Scotland. (For those of you who don't know where Gleneagles is, check your maps for the PGA Centenary Course at The Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland.) She's been an awesome player for a long time and she showed everybody at the last Solheim Cup that she's still got it. (And she did it on short notice too. That's what you call being "clutch.") That performance is gonna carry a lot of weight with the players on her team.
And Juli? Well, there's a reason she's the first US Captain to lead the team three times. It goes beyond the back-to-back wins for Team USA with her at the helm. It's all about "culture," to borrow the term that's popular in so many team sports lately. Juli is neither an overbearing perfectionist nor a party girl, but she has managed to juxtapose the "lunch box" mentality of the first with the "first tee dancer" of the second... and the team has responded to that.
But both are similar in what they bring to their teams.
Both still play the Tour. Both play with and are comfortable around the younger players, and both have the youngsters' respect. Of course, both bridge the gap between those younger players and the legends of the game. Both are approachable, yet both are capable of taking charge when necessary.
And I have no doubt that both will relish working with each other over the next 18 months or so as they do the mandatory publicity work their positions demand.
Isn't it nice when the powers-that-be get it right?
It's hard to believe that even now Juli shouldn't be playing. Make the course tough and she will contend.
ReplyDeleteShe'll be playing the inaugural US Senior Women's Open and the second Senior LPGA Championship
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