Nelly Korda and Allisen Corpuz won their second foursomes match in as many days to help the United States seize a 7-5 lead over the Europeans on Saturday at the Solheim Cup in Andalusia, Spain.
Korda and Corpuz followed up their 1-up victory over Ireland’s Leona Maguire and Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist on Friday at Finca Cortesin with a 5 and 3 win over England’s Georgia Hall and France’s Celine Boutier.
“I think Nelly is really calm, which is kind of what I need,” Corpuz said. “I play pretty low energy. Obviously she has the experience as well. So just knowing that having someone like her by my side has helped me a lot to get comfortable.”
Also on Saturday, Denmark’s Emily K. Pedersen and Spain’s Carlota Ciganda recorded a 2 and 1 win over Americans Lilia Vu and Jennifer Kupcho. That match trimmed the Americans’ lead to 5-4.
“I think it’s important because you don’t want to give too much to the Americans,” Ciganda said of carrying over momentum from Friday’s afternoon matches into Saturday. “I mean, they are tough to beat. They are really strong and they are really good, so we can do this, but we have to play good golf, and we have to be very present and hopefully that’s enough.”
Lexi Thompson and Megan Kang regained the momentum for the Americans, rallying to post a 1-up win over Nordqvist and Maguire.
Korda and Corpuz were victorious before the Swedish duo of Maja Stark and Linn Grant posted a 1-up win over Americans Danielle Kang and Andrea Lee. Stark sank a long putt on No. 17 and Grant did the same on No. 18 to end the match.
The teams will play four four-ball matches on Saturday afternoon and 12 head-to-head singles matches on Sunday. Europe needs to reach 14 points to win its third straight Solheim Cup.
–Field Level Media