SOLHEIM CUP

September 6, 2021

Catriona Matthew

Inverness Club

Trophy Presentation

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the closing ceremony for the 2021 Solheim Cup. I'm Grant Boone, and it is my pleasure to be the master of ceremonies tonight, and whether you're here in Toledo watching or you're viewing on television around the world, what a joy it was this weekend to watch the shotmaking, the passion, and in the midst of the heat of the moment, uncommon acts of grace on both sides.

To you, Toledo, a city that has been such a gracious host to women's golf going back some 60 years, and for the last 35 years hosting an LPGA event and now hosting for the second time an LPGA event here at Inverness, thank you for creating such a great experience, including right here at this 1st and 10th tee all weekend long.

Now would you please join me in welcoming both of the Solheim Cup teams escorted by their caddies, the players, the captains for 2021.

(Teams enter.)

One more round of applause for the U.S. and European Solheim Cup teams. At this time we're going to give special thanks to those who have helped make the Solheim Cup possible and who have built its history along with these great players and captains.

Would you please join me in thanking John Solheim and the Solheim family.

Our founding partner, Ping, and global partners Rolex and Marathon, thank you.

We can't say enough about what the Inverness Club has meant to the LPGA and women's golf in the last 13 months. Many of you know this, but when the LPGA was beginning its restart after the pandemic shutdown, they approached Inverness Club, and within a month, Inverness said yes, we'll give up a week at the peak of our summer and we'll host the Drive On Championship.

Now they have hosted the Solheim Cup. Would you please thank director of grounds John Zimmers, Dr. Casper, the Inverness board, and the entire Inverness Club, an amazing venue that we hope will host more big women's golf events in a very short time.

We want to thank also our local sponsors for your involvement. We felt your support from day one. We're thankful to the city of Toledo and the state of Ohio for making all of us feel at home this past week. Thank you, northwest Ohio. You've been so great to the LPGA.

We can't have any kind of golf event, much less one of this magnitude, without an enormous number of volunteers, so thank you to Meg Ressner and Richard Hylant, the volunteer coordinators for the 2,000 volunteers who worked this weekend. Thank you.

Everyone raised the bar this week, and all of us as fans were the beneficiaries. Now for that crowning moment we've all been waiting for, what a day of competition it was. Came down to the last few moments, yet another example of what makes this event so special.

It's a moment that the European team has anticipated for two years, and now it's time for John Solheim, Ping chairman and CEO, to come up and present this beautiful Solheim trophy to the winning team. John?

And Catriona Matthew, you know how this is done. Come on up.

JOHN SOLHEIM: Holy Toledo! Toledo, you did a wonderful job of making my father, Karsten Solheim and Louise Solheim, so proud of this event. It's their dream. Thank you for making their dream happen.

Inverness, what a wonderful course. Thank you so much for it.

Marathon and Rolex, thank you for being our partners in this.

My team, the Ping team up here, all of them here and in Phoenix, thank you for making me to be able to do this.

U.S. Team, you really fought hard. Wow, I thought you were going to come back. Thank you.

Before I get on to the real thing, I want to see everybody at Spain because that's going to be fun there, and you're going to have to defend again.

THE MODERATOR: This is the fun part, especially for her.

JOHN SOLHEIM: This is the fun part. Catriona Matthew, thank you so much for your team, and, wow, did you gals play hard. I'm very proud to hand this trophy again -- (cheers and applause).

THE MODERATOR: Does it feel like it did two years ago?

CATRIONA MATTHEW: It certainly does. You know, obviously two years ago at Gleneagles in Scotland was fantastic, but this time in America we were up against it. The Americans were a fantastic team this year. They played hard.

We just perhaps holed a few more putts and were lucky we came out on top. I'd like to thank my team. I had a fantastic team, and the captains and our helpers and our caddies and just everyone, the LET staff. We've been one big team, and we've loved every moment of it.

THE MODERATOR: Not only does your team know American soil quite well, the name of the club is Scottish, and you came here to Inverness with the Loch Ness monster on the bottom of your golf bags.

We saw something that was almost as rare as a Nessy sighting, and that is a European win in the United States. You were part of the team in 2013 as a player that won in Colorado, and now you're the captain of the team that's won here in Toledo. What does it mean to do it here for a second time?

CATRIONA MATTHEW: I don't know if I can put it in words, actually. It's not really sunk in yet. Today was -- we got off to such a good start winning three points in the first few games, and then it looked pretty close. We knew it was going to be close, and then just coming -- Matilda obviously holing that fantastic putt on 18 to get her full point, and then Emily closing out on 18 was just a dream come true stuff really. I'm not sure how many of my team knew it was a Loch Ness monster.

THE MODERATOR: I think they will now. Your team had veterans like Anna Nordqvist whom you put out first to hit the very first shot. You put her out first earlier today, and you also had some players who within the last year weren't on perhaps even your radar, and they contributed mightily to this win today. Tell us about your team.

CATRIONA MATTHEW: I think we were a team of 12. They all contributed. We couldn't have done it -- one person doesn't win it, we needed all 12 of them, so just congratulations to the whole team.

THE MODERATOR: You're two for two. Might you do it again in Spain?

CATRIONA MATTHEW: Nope. That's over to someone else.

THE MODERATOR: "No más" says Catriona Matthew. Go celebrate with your team.