Kang ready to pump up the volume in duel in the Glen

RAUCOUS roars, frenzied fist-pumping, pounding patriotism and the kind of excited yells and shrieks that can sound a bit like an angle grinder having a disagreement with a banshee? Team golf can generate quite an exuberant din.

Away from the more hum-drum environments of the week-to-week strokeplay occasions, which can often be greeted with the kind of genteel, polite applause you would get when Phyllis finishes a slide show of her prize blooms at the local floral art club, the Solheim Cup can be a histrionic hoo-ha during which the traditionally reserved Royal & Ancient game bursts from its straitjacket and goes berserk.

Rather like the Ryder Cup, there is a sense that the thrills seem to be much grander, the anguish of defeat seems much more severe and the involvement of the galleries is unique. The pre-match posturing by the players, meanwhile, takes on a more combative air.

Take Danielle Kang, for instance. Ahead of this week’s contest between Europe and the USA here at Gleneagles, the 26-year-old Californian spoke to the Drop Zone Podcast in her native land and gave her views on what the tumult of team tussles means to her.

“You’re trying to take souls, you know,” Kang declared. “You’re going there to make people cry at this point, just crush the other team. That’s the fun of it. We don’t ever get to do that.”

An animated, rabble-rousing Kang was a Solheim Cup debutant in Des Moines two years and was as bubbly as a malfunction at a Prosecco bottling plant. She is not going to be putting a cork in it at Gleneagles either.

“Des Moines was top-notch for me,” she said. “The fact we were on US soil made it better with all the ‘USA’ chants. Since we’re in Scotland, I don’t know what I’m going to hear. I hear I’m going to be booed at one point. So bring it on.”

The respectful, knowledgeable, appreciative spectators in the game’s cradle booing a player? Surely not.

“I was told personally I was going to be booed,” she added before stating that she was pulling our legs and that she was well aware of the “respectful” and “honourable” Scottish crowds.

Kang, who made her major breakthrough in the 2017 Women’s PGA Championship, clearly revels in the highly-charged, up-and-at-’em environment of the team format.

“I just love matchplay golf,” said Kang, who won three of her four matches in the 2017 Solheim Cup. “In [strokeplay] golf, we lose most of the time. If you don’t win [a tournament)] you’re technically a loser. It’s hard to win.

“But in matchplay you can just play one person. That psychological part of it is what’s fun for me, that I’m just going after this one person. Either she wins or I win.

“You don’t have to worry about the other 143 players out there. You just worry about that one person. You’re not watching the leaderboard, you’re watching her.”

During the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles, the fiery Patrick Reed assumed the role of pantomime villain by making a “shushing” gesture at the European galleries.

“I can’t shush the crowd, I like noise and I can’t be shushed either,” added Kang with a smile.

Solheim Cups in Scotland have tended to have a bit of needle. At Loch Lomond in 2000, the insistence by American players that Annika Sorenstam replay a shot just about caused an international incident.

In 1992, at Dalmahoy, an incendiary comment attributed to Beth Daniel seemed to spur on the Europeans.

“Our players are hell-bent on seeing Beth Daniel eat her words,” said European captain Mickey Walker at the time. They did and Europe upset the odds to win.

Whether Kang’s expressive exuberance acts as an annoyance to the Europeans and emboldens their spirit remains to be seen. One thing is certain, though, there will be plenty of passion and pride demonstrated from both sides as the battle heats up.

“There are no forced fist pumps, no forced emotions,” said the former Women’s British Open champion and two-time Solheim Cup player Karen Stupples. “It’s something that you can’t stifle. It just comes out of you, even when you don’t want it to come out of you and you’re trying to keep everything in check.

“You’ve spent two years working for this moment. You’re celebrating for everybody, not just yourself. The Solheim Cup just seems bigger because of who you’re representing. It just comes out and I think people see the genuineness in that.”

You’re trying to take souls. You’re going there to make people cry, just crush the other team. That’s the fun of it . I hear I’m going to be booed. So bring it on