Solheim Cup captains quite a contrast
She stands about 5 feet with a boost from her soft cleats, and when posing with LPGA giant Beth Daniel, their trusty hands holding the Waterford Crystal trophy known as the Solheim Cup, soft-smiling Alison Nicholas hardly looks like a formidable foe.
Don't let the 47-year-old's modesty fool you either. While the Birmingham, England native quipped during a recent visit to Rich Harvest Farms, site of this week's 2009 Solheim Cup, that her most important job as European Team captain might be to cruise the course in a golf cart telling her players jokes to keep them loose, no one doubts her serious commitment to winning.
Europe is the underdog again to the United States, which leads the biennial series 7-3 and has never lost on American soil. But that won't faze Nicholas, who played the role of David many times during a career that started in 1984 and collected 20 victories, including one for the ages.
It was the 1997 U.S. Women's Open in Portland, Ore., when the diminutive Nicholas brought down a Goliath, the great and popular Nancy Lopez, who had the large crowd cheering every strike of the ball by the LPGA legend.
For another golf icon, Englishwoman Laura Davies, who has played in all 10 Solheim Cup competitions, the choice of Nicholas as European Team captain was as easy as a tap-in putt. Davies played alongside Nicholas nine times in Solheim Cup matches.
"No one deserves it more than 'Big Al'," Davies said.
The same can be said about the selection of Daniel to captain Team USA.
The 5-11 Daniel, who stands nearly a foot taller than Nicholas, has been a giant in the game since she was an amateur player. She was a member of the famed Furman University team that won the 1976 national championship with a lineup that also included fellow future Hall of Famer Betsy King and future LPGA players Sherri Turner and Cindy Ferro.
The 52-year-old Daniel, who turned pro in 1979, owns 33 LPGA Tour wins, including one major - the 1990 LPGA Championship. When she won in 2003, she became, at age 46, the oldest winner in Tour history. A few years earlier, in 1999, Daniel again put her name in the LPGA record books by making 9 birdies in a row.
She served as assistant captain to King in 2007, when the United States celebrated a 16-12 victory in Sweden.
"I've always thought (Daniel's) was one of the best, if not the best-looking, golf swings since Mickey Wright," Judy Rankin, who captained the U.S. Team to the 1996 Solheim Cup championship in Wales, once said. "It is still one of the three or four best swings I have ever seen."
Like Nicholas, Daniel relishes challenges. Like Tiger Woods, the Charleston, S.C., native loathes losing and has been known to show anger on the course.
"I don't mind hitting balls and working on my game," Daniel once said. "I just don't handle non-perfection well."
Daniel's toughness also came into play with the two-year selection process for picking the U.S. team. Ten players automatically qualified, and Daniel had two captain's picks, which she explained as solidly as a well-struck drive.
"The worst part of a captain's job is telling people they aren't going to make the team," she told reporters last week. "I had eight people I had to go talk to and tell them no. And two people I told yes."
Her choices were 49-year-old veteran Julie Inkster and 19-year-old Michelle Wie. Although Wie has never won on the LPGA Tour, Daniel clearly sees her as a formidable player.
"If people use the argument that she's been given everything her whole life and she's never won anything - that she won't be able to handle the pressure, I would argue that this kid has been under pressure ever since she picked up a golf club," Daniel told reporters covering her Junior Azalea tournament in Charleston last week. "She's had a lot of experience and she's been under the microscope. Plus, if you look at the stats on the team, she averages four birdies a round. That's wonderful for match play."
Europe's attempt to win for the first time since 2003 in Malmo, Sweden will be hampered by not having Annika Sorenstam. Perhaps the greatest female golfer of all time, the 38-year-old Sorenstam stepped away from competitive golf last year.
But Nicholas, like Daniel, is focused only on the players who are here in Sugar Grove this week. A member of Europe's winning teams in 1992 and 2000 and a vice-captain in 2003 and 2005, Nicholas has full appreciation for the challenge facing her team this week.
"It's a privilege," she said, "to be the European captain."
She means it - and means business.
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/packages/2009/solheimcup/">More on the Solheim Cup</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>