Solheim Cup: Captain’s picks give me lots of combinations, says Koch

Last week, I announced my four captain’s picks live on the Sky Sports News SportsWomen show and it was fantastic to be able to share the news with a wide television audience as well as all of our fans around the world.

The players that I selected are Caroline Hedwall, Karine Icher, Caroline Masson and Catriona Matthew and they join the eight qualifiers: Carlota Ciganda, Sandra Gal, Charley Hull, Azahara Muñoz, Gwladys Nocera, Anna Nordqvist, Suzann Pettersen and Melissa Reid.

I’m really pleased with my team as we have a great mixture of youth and experience. We also have a lot of different pairing opportunities and that was one of the selection criteria for the wild cards, to ensure that we had a lot of combinations. I felt that’s what we had in Colorado when I was a vice-captain and it just made it a little easier. Nine of my team members played in Colorado and have good memories of winning. Stepping into this 2015 Solheim Cup, we will definitely start with good vibes.

On Monday, I made sure that I found time to play in a charity day run by the 2007 European Solheim Cup captain Helen Alfredsson, in aid of Alzheimer’s. It’s a cause close to my heart as my mum has the disease and it’s a priority for me to play in it every year. Over the next two weeks, I will spend some time thinking about The Solheim Cup, but I’ll also be relaxing at home with my boys. I have some things to prepare but I feel pretty organised.

I have a few public speeches to write, but mainly I’ll focus on what I want to communicate to the players and how I communicate it and how I want people around the team to communicate.

That will be my main focus because I think that is more important than anything at this stage.

This week, I’ll be attending the Helsingborg Open at Vasatorps Golf Club on Friday where I’ll talk about increasing women’s participation in golf with the Swedish Golf Federation. Next week, I’ll be attending the Evian Championship in France over the weekend. There is a dinner on Saturday night that my sponsor Rolex organises and I’ll probably watch some golf, following a few of my players and some others. All of my team are playing in a Major championship, so I won’t bother them too much, but I’ll be cheering them on.

After play finishes on Sunday, we’ll all get on a luxury coach and travel to Germany together, so that’s really when my role as captain starts. We’ll have a bit of a team-building session on the bus together.

It’s funny, when you have 12 women aged 19 to 46, the music choices are quite interesting and varied, so that should make for some extra laughs.

We’ll have a play list and a movie selection on the bus, so I’m looking forward to it!

Follow me on Twitter! @Carin_Koch

 

Tagged Carin Koch, Caroline Hedwall, Caroline Masson, Catriona Matthew, Karine Icher, Solheim Cup, Solheim Cup 2015