Can't-Miss AMERICA
A pain in the neck is what Cristie Kerr woke up with last Saturday at 1 a.m. She tried to turn her head, and the neck said, Don't even think about it. She tried to go back to sleep, and the neck said, Tell Nancy. So at 4 a.m. America's top-ranked woman golfer knocked on the hotel-room door of U.S. Solheim Cup captain Nancy Lopez--who, it turned out, was sleepless in Indiana for reasons of her own--and served up the bad news. She would not be able to play her Saturday morning foursome match, and unless she got some quick, magical therapy, she might miss the afternoon four-balls and the Sunday singles as well. ¶ "It couldn't have happened at a worse time," Erik Stevens said that afternoon, standing inside a gallery rope on the 12th fairway at Crooked Stick Golf Club, near Indianapolis. Stevens is Kerr's agent and boyfriend--"We've been together for five victories"--so he knew all about the bulging cervical disk that betrays Kerr from time to time. "It happens when she plays a lot in one day," he said. "The nerves get inflamed, and the neck goes into spasms." Behind him, meanwhile, Kerr and teammate Paula Creamer marched up the fairway next to a bobbing standard that read usa 1-up. "She's not herself," Stevens said, turning to watch, "but she's hanging in there."
As it happened, after massage therapy Kerr would do more for her teammates and Lopez than simply hang in there. Playing in her third Solheim Cup, the 27-year-old scored two critical points and provided steady leadership as the U.S. women won back the Cup they had lost in Sweden two years ago, triumphing 15 1/2-12 1/2. And the once volatile Kerr did it, everyone agreed, without being a pain in the neck. "It's been wonderful to see the transformation in Cristie," LPGA commissioner Ty Votaw said earlier in the week. "It's probably taken her longer than she anticipated as a 19-year-old, but from the beginning of last year through this year she has arguably been the best American player." He added, "She's always played the game with a joy and passion. That's never been an issue."
What had been an issue was Kerr's prickly personality. In the run-up to the 2002 Solheim Cup, Catrin Nilsmark, this year's European captain, made headlines by calling Kerr "a little brat"--a slight the American dismissed last week with a shrug. "We all say things about people we don't know," Kerr said. "Things we regret after we meet them. If anything, Catrin motivated us." And yes, Kerr said us. "Golf is a very individual sport," she explained, "but it's not about you when you're playing on a team. You have teammates to motivate. You have teammates to lean on." Lopez, had she been in the room, would have smiled.
Whom a given player could lean on was on everyone's mind when the U.S. women pitched camp last week. Lopez had three Solheim rookies on her team--Creamer, 19, a two-time winner in this, her first season on tour; Natalie Gulbis, 22, a fourth-year player ranked sixth on the money list; and boisterous Christina Kim, 21, a first-time winner in 2004. How often those three would play, and with whom, was one of the issues contributing to Lopez's insomnia.
That was one story line. The other involved Kerr, who had already figured prominently in a couple of classic Solheim Cup matches, including a four-ball victory (with partner Kellie Kuehne) over Laura Davies and Sophie Gustafson in 2003 at Barsebäck, in Malmö, Sweden--a match that had ended on the 17th hole when Kerr hit her approach a foot from the hole. Since then Kerr has won five LPGA events (more than any other player not named Sorenstam).
But she had also shown signs that she was not ready to settle for tour-pro conformity. In 2004 she broke off her engagement to longtime beau and Marine captain Robb Sucher. Kerr then rented an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where between practice sessions at the Chelsea Piers driving range she cultivated friendships with the likes of Donald Trump and former MTV honcho Bob Pittman. "She's very determined," says Bryan Lebedevitch, Kerr's swing coach. "If she doesn't like the way things are going, she changes."
That she does. Kerr's backstory is usually told as a variation of the ugly duckling parable: Unpopular tour player loses 50 pounds, swaps her thick glasses for contacts and swans past the mean girls to golfing glory. The twist is that Kerr, even after her dramatic weight loss, was regarded as flintier than her tormentors. Few dispute that Kerr got a cold welcome when she joined the LPGA in 1997.
The memory of those lonely times makes Kerr eager to play big sister to younger LPGA players like Beth Bauer, Brittany Lincicome and Solheim Cup teammates Creamer and Gulbis. "I wouldn't necessarily call it mentoring," Kerr says. "I simply try to be a friend." Lopez took those friendships into account at Crooked Stick, pairing Kerr with Gulbis in two Friday matches and with Creamer on Saturday afternoon. "Sometimes players who are close friends don't work together well," Lopez said, "but I'm trusting their feelings."
That trust paid off. After losing a Friday morning alternate-shot match to the hot-putting combo of Davies and Maria Hjorth, Kerr and Gulbis rubbed out Gustafson and Karen Stupples, 2 and 1, in the afternoon four-balls. (Kerr made four birdies on the front side and won the match with another on the par-3 17th.) "Cristie is such a great ball striker," Gulbis said the next afternoon, watching Creamer and Kerr hold on for a four-balls victory over Carin Koch and Catriona Matthew. "If I missed a shot in the foursomes, she'd recover for me and get us back in the game."
Being a game of woe and irony as much as a game of woods and irons, golf then humbled Kerr with a 2-and-1 loss on Sunday to Gwladys Nocera of France. ("My neck was 100 percent today," Kerr said. "She simply played really, really well.") The U.S. rookies, however, led a singles assault that left the Europeans reeling. Creamer devoured Davies 7 and 5. Kim rolled over Ludivine Kreutz 5 and 4. Gulbis, almost breaking a sweat, handled Hjorth 2 and 1. "People questioned why I played my rookies that first day," Lopez said. In fact hardly anyone with an eye for talent had challenged Lopez's strategy. And those who did clammed up when they realized her rookies had scored nine points--almost as many as the entire U.S. team tallied at Barsebäck.
Kerr, meanwhile, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her happy teammates, an American flag pinned like a battle feather to the back of her cap. "Some of the older players still have a hard time warming up to Cristie," Stevens said, "but they're learning that she's like most accomplished, complicated people. You have to peel back the layers to discover her true nature." The kid golfers had no trouble seeing Kerr for what she was--a reformed golf brat, not much older than themselves, who had learned how to win in a winning way. "I thought it worked out really well," Kerr said. "I maybe bridged that gap a little, the gap between the veterans and the rookies."
It's a gap Kerr may have to bridge a few more times before her Solheim Cup role changes.
SOLHEIM BREAKDOWN
Who was hot and who was not during a 15 1/2-12 1/2 U.S. victory
[This article contains two tables. Please see hard copy or pdf.]
UNITED STATES
  | W-L-H | BOTTOM LINE |
PAULA CREAMER | 3-1-1 | Backed up her cheeky prediction of a U.S. rout with team-high 3 1/2 points |
BETH DANIEL | 0-1-2 | Eighth Solheim Cup probably the last for 48-year-old "favorite aunt" |
LAURA DIAZ | 1-2-0 | Limited to one match a day, spanked Tinning in battle of expectant moms |
NATALIE GULBIS | 3-1-0 | Singles victory over Hjorth gave U.S. its 14th point, guaranteeing a tie |
PAT HURST | 2-2-1 | Captain Lopez's go-to gal; was one of two Americans to play five matches |
JULI INKSTER | 2-1-1 | Challenged Kim for Best Celebrator; got U.S. off to fast start on Sunday |
ROSIE JONES | 1-0-2 | Why is she retiring? Sparked U.S. comeback from first-session deficit |
CRISTIE KERR | 2-2-0 | Played great before neck problem; singles loss to Nocera will stick in craw |
CHRISTINA KIM | 2-1-1 | Euros--especially Kreutz--had no equal to one-woman Mardi Gras |
MEG MALLON | 2-0-1 | Superb play on Saturday presaged Cup-clinching match on Sunday |
MICHELE REDMAN | 1-2-0 | Saved face by coming through as Kerr's replacement on Saturday |
WENDY WARD | 0-3-0 | Captain's pick now 0-7-0 in last two Cups; looked shaky on short putts |
 
EUROPE
  | W-L-H | BOTTOM LINE |
LAURA DAVIES | 3-2-0 | Long as ever and still a force, yet can't be counted on in five matches |
SOPHIE GUSTAFSON | 1-2-2 | Only one victory, but she did the heavy lifting in two halves |
MARIA HJORTH | 1-3-0 | Big hitter started strong on Friday, then had three straight losses |
TRISH JOHNSON | 0-1-2 | Cup has not been kind to her; has 5-12-5 record in seven starts |
CARIN KOCH | 2-1-1 | Still one of Europe's top competitors, couldn't get every putt to drop this time |
LUDIVINE KREUTZ | 0-2-0 | French rookie disappeared in glare of Kim, particularly on Sunday |
CATRIONA MATTHEW | 2-2-1 | Workhorse's 2-and-1 win over Ward kept Euros' flickering hopes alive |
GWLADYS NOCERA | 1-1-0 | A cipher to Americans, only rookie point for depth-challenged Euros |
SUZANN PETTERSEN | 2-0-2 | Powerful Norwegian with weird takeaway was unexpected bright spot |
ANNIKA SORENSTAM | 4-1-0 | And she did this with a balky putter. Alltime Cup points leader with 20 |
KAREN STUPPLES | 0-2-0 | Benched after Friday loss, absorbed coup de grace from Mallon on Sunday |
IBEN TINNING | 0-2-1 | Angrily shook finger at fans who applauded her short miss on Saturday |
TWO PHOTOS
Photographs by Darren Carroll
 AS PROMISED
Creamer made good on her brash prediction, while Kerr (inset) supplied the right kind of chemistry.
PHOTO
Photographs by Darren Carroll
 KIM DANDY
Lopez (left) loved the points and the pluck that Kim brought to the team.
TWENTY-FOUR PHOTOS
DAVID CANNON/GETTY IMAGES (U.S., EUROPEAN TEAMS)
TWO ILLUSTRATIONS