Catriona Matthew will make her ninth playing appearance in the Solheim Cup this week after Suzann Pettersen withdrew from Team Europe with a niggling back injury.
Matthew, who is one of Annika Sorenstam’s vice-captains for the biennial battle with the US at Des Moines in Iowa, missed out on a wild card pick just a fortnight ago but the Scottish veteran has been drafted into frontline duty as Pettersen’s on-going problems with a slipped disk proved too much to bear.
Matthew, the 47-year-old from North Berwick, has earned 19 points from 33 matches down the seasons and has been a member of three winning teams in 2003, 2011 and 2013.
She famously holed the winning putt in the 2003 Solheim Cup at Barsebäck Golf and Country Club in Sweden and secured the half point to win the cup outright to seal Europe’s first away victory in Colorado four years ago.
Sorenstam said: “It's unfortunate that Suzann has to withdraw due to her back injury. The Solheim Cup has been such an important part of her career. It was a very tough decision, but I am proud of her and she will still be a leader this week.
“Catriona is a proven Solheim Cup performer who will be able to step right in and play with anybody. She's ready to go.”
Pettersen, a veteran of eight Solheim Cup campaigns, added: “I have made this extremely difficult decision to help the European team and give my team mates the best possible chance of success. There was no guarantee that I would be fit to compete on Friday morning and I did not want to play unless I was able to give 100 per cent. I truly love The Solheim Cup and I will stay and support my team this week in whatever way I can.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here