In score, plot and tone, the comparisons are almost eerie. The way the Solheim Cup played out to a stunning conclusion Sunday in St. Leon-Rot, Germany, strongly recalled the 1999 Ryder Cup in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Just like 16 years ago, a group of Americans on the ropes and all but counted out rallied to a historic comeback victory in a competition beset by controversy.
Most of all, the U.S. captains then and now -- Ben Crenshaw and Juli Inkster -- are well-respected and well-liked figures in golf who have a deep passion for the game and who sustained their early success to build Hall of Fame careers. When it came time to lead American teams coming off two straight losses to Europe in biennial competition, each seemed like the right person at the right time.
Although there were moments when things looked very bleak for the U.S. in both the 1999 Ryder Cup and this year's Solheim Cup, the players came through for both Crenshaw and Inkster with inspired golf. Crenshaw's team made a record comeback after trailing 10-6 going into singles play. Inkster's team rallied from the same record margin and prevailed by the same score, 14½ to 13½. Few envisioned either Sunday playing out the way it did.
There had been a little friction in the lead-up to the 1999 Ryder Cup, with several players believing they should share in what had become an enormous cash cow. None of that mattered as the Americans overwhelmed the Europeans on the final day. Inkster, who still competes on the LPGA Tour at age 55 -- and who beat a number of her team's players in the Evian Championship the week before the Solheim Cup -- had no such circumstances complicating her role.
Inkster's team members, some of whom are younger than her daughters, know and are genuinely fond of her -- they appreciate her for the way she has stayed competitive and current, for the fact that she's been able to have a family while remaining an elite golfer and for being a genuine person. They bought into Inkster's rollback of some of the silly stuff that marked the Americans' defeat two years ago in Colorado, winning without decals on their cheeks and arrogant celebrations after winning a hole.
Especially on a Sunday never to be forgotten, they seemed to channel some of their captain's get-it-done grit that helped her to 31 LPGA victories, including seven majors. When they had to, they excelled at match play, which Inkster has always loved more than a prime seat at a San Francisco Giants game. It had been a half century since someone had won the U.S. Women's Amateur three straight times when Inkster did so in the early 1980s before setting out on her professional career.
Whatever inspiration Inkster offered to her players as they teed off in singles needing to play the golf of their lives, it was underlined by the situation involving Suzann Pettersen on the 17th hole Sunday morning in the completion of a four-balls match when the Norwegian didn't take the sporting high ground over an 18-inch putt American Alison Lee thought had been conceded.
The incident stoked the Americans' competitive spirit. No one came through in finer style than veteran Angela Stanford, who had lost nine consecutive matches over the course of three Solheim Cups but took down Pettersen 2-and-1 in a pivotal singles match. Pettersen held tight to her belief that she had done nothing wrong when speaking immediately after the European defeat, but Instagrammed a full apology Monday, saying she had met with Inkster to express her regrets about her behavior.
"I've never felt more gutted and truly sad about what went down Sunday on the 17th at the Solheim Cup," Pettersen wrote. "I am so sorry for not thinking about the bigger picture in the heat of the battle and competition. I was trying my hardest for my team and put the single match and the point that could be earned ahead of sportsmanship and the game of golf itself! I feel like I let my team down and I am sorry."
At a time when apologies are often halfhearted and in the vein of "If I've offended anyone ...," Pettersen's morning-after mea culpa was complete. "I wish I could change Sunday for many reasons," she wrote. "Unfortunately I can't." She concluded by saying, "And I want to work hard to earn back your belief in me as someone who plays hard, plays fair and plays the great game of golf the right way."
Despite all the scrutiny focused on those contentious moments with Pettersen, the way that the Americans played on Sunday to redeem themselves in the Solheim Cup ought to be the lasting impression of the matches. The U.S. players have been critiqued in some quarters as being content with a good check, as being more concerned with attention than success, and as not working as hard as some of their rivals from other parts of the globe, particularly South Korea. Americans don't dominate women's golf, and they haven't for a while. They might not ever again, for reasons having nothing to do with their work ethic.
The day after the 14th Solheim Cup, an event that began in 1990 when the golf world was much smaller, the Americans had nothing to apologize for and much to be proud of. They had played hard, played fair and played the right way in giving a deserving captain a sweet victory. Instead of face paint, after the final putt they wore T-shirts bearing a phrase that reflects Inkster's attitude, which had also become theirs: "Winner, winner, chicken dinner."
This one tasted awfully good.