The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
An important bond
I’m never going to play in a Solheim Cup but at the weekend I got the nearest experience to holing the winning putt in one.
It was a pretty cool feeling to secure the point that got Team World the trophy off Team North America for the first time in six years.
After we’d got off to a great start in Vegas, they came back at us and it all came down to the last set of skins games.
There were three matches going on at the same time and when I managed to secure a two against Rachel Homan in the eighth end, that was enough to get us over the line.
After all I went through in the summer, it was definitely the high point so far.
You can never be sure how the team dynamic is going to be when you’re bringing rivals together for a one-off event like this. But it’s not just golf where Europeans bond better than athletes from across the Atlantic.
Our team was basically a Team Europe – Scots, Swedes and Swiss
– and it was great fun from start to finish.
We gelled so well. We’ll go back to battling against each other soon enough but the egos were left at the door and there was no reluctance to share tactics and things like that.
Nothing was hidden by coaches or players. It’s exactly how I imagine the European locker room to be like in a Ryder Cup.
Anybody who wasn’t playing was always at the side of the ice to give support – and that definitely wasn’t the case with our opponents. And when you win, you get back everything
You can never be sure how the team dynamic is going to be when you’re bringing together rivals for a one-off event
you’ve put in because it was such a buzz.
As Team Muirhead we did really well, which has built on the semi-final we got to in Canada the week before.
Things are moving in the right direction. Next up will be the Scottish Championships in Perth in a fortnight... just a bit different to Vegas!
Verbal tennis
It’s never great when you see two high profile figures in British sport having a to and fro in the media.
Earlier in the week Dan Evans and Jamie Murray took part in a game of verbal tennis. The gist of it seemed to be Evans downplaying the importance of doubles and Murray talking it up.
I can see both sides. Murray has every right to defend the standard of doubles and its importance to tennis.
He’s had a good career out of it and, as well as Grand Slam titles, there are Olympic medals won by playing that format of the game.
He was also right to highlight the importance of doubles to Britain’s Davis Cup success – and the excitement of those Saturday afternoon Murray brothers games in Glasgow.
But Evans is probably correct that nobody would start out in tennis with the dream of being a doubles player. That probably comes later for a variety of reasons.
Every child on a tennis court will want to be the next Roger Federer, Andy Murray or Serena Williams.
There’s a reason the big money is won in singles – and that’s because it’s what the public wants to watch most of all.