Nelly Korda is the No. 1 in the world, a multiple major winner and an Olympic gold medalist.
Still, for all her individual accolades, nothing in golf beats putting on the Team USA uniform and representing her country at the Solheim Cup.
“There’s no greater feeling,” Korda says, “especially stepping onto that first tee box.”
This week could be even more special for the biggest name in women’s golf.
Korda is spearheading the United States’ attempt to win the Solheim Cup on European soil for the first time since 2015 in the matches that start Friday in the Netherlands. After regaining the crystal trophy in 2024, the Americans need only 14 points at Bernardus Golf course to keep possession.
An away Solheim Cup victory is one of the few achievements missing on Korda’s golfing résumé — and she only has to speak to her captain to learn how to get it done.
Asked to rank the best memories from her six Solheim Cups as a player and three as an assistant, Angela Stanford says being part of that U.S. win in Germany 11 years ago is No. 1.
Her only Curtis Cup appearance was a win in England in 2000.
Her only major title? At the Evian Championship in France in 2018.
For Stanford, there’s just something about going into enemy territory and coming away with the trophy.
“Growing up, I played a lot of different team sports and I loved going to other people’s gyms, going to their fields,” the U.S. captain said. “It doesn’t bother me to go into a hostile environment and try to play and try to perform.”
Not that it’s expected to be too intimidating at Bernardus. OK, there’s a purpose-built amphitheater around the first tee that will allow around 3,000 spectators to see some of the world’s top golfers go weak at the knees for the pressure-filled opening drive.
Just don’t expect the kind of unruly behavior — or downright nasty abuse — seen at recent Ryder Cups, the men’s equivalent to the Solheim Cup.
“With the women, it’s super respectful,” said European assistant captain Anne van Dam, who will be the only Dutchwoman in the team room. “Both teams are very close. Everyone is friends. And I think with the women, everything is a lot more friendly.”
The U.S. team arrives with the best player in the world, an 11-7-1 advantage in a series that dates to 1990, and plenty of uncertainty.
There’s no Lilia Vu, who was the world No. 2 and sank the winning putt for the Americans in Virginia in 2024, as she struggles to regain form after health issues. Missing from the team for the first time since 2011 is big-hitting Lexi Thompson, who no longer plays a full schedule and is expecting her first baby early next year.
Angel Yin automatically made the team as the No. 2 qualifier but has only just returned to action after two months out with stomach problems.
Aside from Korda, only Lauren Coughlin (ranked No. 17) is in the world’s top 20. Korda has more wins (23) than the other 11 members of the team combined (18).
Still, Stanford said she “truly loves” the team — featuring two rookies in Auston Kim and 35-year-old Lindy Duncan — she’s bringing across the pond.
“I hope,” she said, “they’re starting look like some of my personality. I think they are very gritty, I think they have a lot of heart.”
There are seven nationalities in the European team and the best players come from England, with rookie Lottie Woad and Charley Hull ranked Nos. 7 and 8, respectively.
The 22-year-old Woad, a rising star in women's golf, won the Women's Irish Open and tied for third at the Evian Championship while an amateur last summer. She turned pro and won her first event at the Women's Scottish Open. A year later, she is a standout in a European team captained by Anna Nordqvist, a nine-time Solheim Cup player who played while a vice captain to Suzann Pettersen in the last two editions.
Julia Lopez Ramirez, Nastasia Nadaud and Mimi Rhodes are Europe's other rookies and all were captain's picks, along with Ireland's Leona Maguire, who has an 8-3-1 record in her three Solheim Cup appearances.
Hull and Carlota Ciganda of Spain will be playing in their eighth Solheim Cup.
Van Dam said the Dutch were surprised to win the right to host the Solheim Cup, with golf trailing well behind in the list of most popular sports in the Netherlands fronted by soccer, tennis and field hockey.
“I’m just hoping that a lot of young kids will come out to watch and get inspired to pick up the game to see how cool it is,” she said.
Hungry visitors are likely to sample the popular Dutch snack “bitterbal” (a deep fried ball of meat stew), while Bosche balls — think a round eclair, covered in chocolate — is a local specialty from Den Bosch, the nearest city to the course.
Cycling is a big part of Dutch culture and many spectators are likely to take a bike from the nearby train station to Bernardus, which is known for its impressive architecture and where there's expected to be plenty of orange — or oranje — around the event to give it a classic Dutch vibe.
The Netherlands is the seventh European nation to stage the Solheim Cup.
See AP’s full golf coverage here
Charley Hull, of England, hits off the 13th tee during the first round of the LPGA FM Championship golf tournament in Norton, Mass., Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Lottie Woad hits off the 14th tee during the first round of the LPGA FM Championship golf tournament in Norton, Mass., Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Nelly Korda hits hits on the 13th hole during the first round of the LPGA FM Championship golf tournament in Norton, Mass., Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
LONDON (AP) — Jamaica is taking its campaign for Britain to pay reparations for the ravages of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to King Charles III.
Using legal traditions that stretch back to the early days of the British Empire, Jamaica will on Monday petition the king to refer a series of questions about slavery and the U.K.’s responsibility to pay damages to a committee of the Privy Council, which serves as the highest court for former colonies that retain ties to the British legal system.
While the petition is formally addressed to the king, Charles has no personal say on whether it will be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and he will act on the advice of the government.
The filing was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the day in 1781 when the Liverpool-registered ship Zong set sail from West Africa with 442 enslaved Africans on board. When water supplies ran low on the way to Jamaica, the crew decided to throw 132 men, women and children overboard, calculating that it would be more profitable to file an insurance claim for the lost “property” than to sell their weakened and dehydrated captives for a reduced price.
Publicity about the Zong massacre helped fuel the campaign to end slavery in the British Empire. Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, but it wasn’t until Aug. 1, 1834, that the enslavement of human beings was outlawed.
“In relation to the wrongs that were done, we want answers,” Jamaican Culture Minister Olivia Grange told The Associated Press on Sunday before a church service in south London, the first in a series of events scheduled around the filing.
“Once we get those answers, then our attorneys, our lawyers, will determine what the next move is,” she added.
Jamaica is one of the leaders of the effort to get Britain and other European nations to apologize for their role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and pay reparations, both for the enslavement of individuals and for the continuing impact on their descendants around the world.
Although he has stopped short of endorsing reparations, the king has repeatedly expressed his personal commitment to addressing the historic wrongs of slavery.
“The appalling atrocity of the slave trade, and the unimaginable suffering it caused, left an indelible stain on the history of our world,” Charles, who was then Prince of Wales, said during a 2018 speech in Ghana.
While acknowledging that slavery was “abhorrent,” the British government has so far rejected demands for either an apology or reparations.
When the United Nations General Assembly in March passed a resolution endorsing reparations as a “concrete step” toward addressing the wrongs of slavery, the U.K. abstained. That was partly because the U.K. believes in the internationally recognized legal concept that the law governing any event is the law of the relevant time, British representative James Kariuki told the U.N.
“There is equally no duty to provide reparation for historical acts that were not, at the time those acts were committed, violations of international law,” he said.
Jamaica’s petition is an effort to expand the political campaign for reparations into the legal realm, Grange said.
The petition asks the Judicial Committee to rule on three questions:
— Was the forced transport of African people to Jamaica and their subsequent enslavement illegal because it was contrary to English common law?
— Were the forced transport and enslavement of African people crimes against humanity for which the U.K. bears responsibility?
— Does the U.K. have an obligation to “provide a remedy” to the people of Jamaica for the forced transport and enslavement of their ancestors?
Craig Prescott, an expert on constitutional law and the monarchy at Royal Holloway, University of London, said the move was “quite clever” because it seeks to use an obscure constitutional procedure to address one of the biggest issues in Jamaican society.
The right of British people to petition the crown with grievances about the administration of justice stretches back to the Norman conquest of England in 1066, when the king was considered the “fountain of justice throughout his Dominions,” the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council says on its website.
Jamaica’s petition is based on an 1833 law that made the committee the highest court for civil and criminal appeals in the British Empire. When the Empire became the Commonwealth of independent nations after World War II, the committee retained that role for the countries that maintain their legal ties to the U.K.
Prescott expects the petition to be referred to the Judicial Committee, where a panel of U.K. Supreme Court justices will review it and make a ruling.
But, he said, the justices are usually very cautious about granting such petitions because they sidestep standard legal procedures.
“I think, at the very least, the board will look at this with a skeptical eye, not because of questions of whether slavery is wrong or right or otherwise, but just this is a very peculiar legal procedure that is sort of just one on the statute books that rears its head from time to time.”
But rejection of the petition could still be a win for Jamaica.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness has announced plans to sever ties with the British crown and transform his country into a republic.
If the Privy Council, acting in the king’s name, rejects the petition it would underscore the gulf between the interests of Britain and those of Jamaica, Prescott said.
“It does raise the question of why have a head of state who really does not share the positions that are widely held in Jamaica,” he said.
“If those residual links (to Britain) don’t deliver an answer that is what they’re looking for in Jamaica, then you might be looking at severing those links.”
Jamaica's Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange, speaks during a service, in London, Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026, for the "remembrance, justice and repair" before filing a petition to refer three specific questions about trans-Atlantic slavery to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Jamaica's Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange, attends a service, in London, Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026, for the "remembrance, justice and repair" before filing a petition to refer three specific questions about trans-Atlantic slavery to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
People attend a service, in London, Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026, for the "remembrance, justice and repair" before filing a petition to refer three specific questions about trans-Atlantic slavery to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Jamaica's Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange, right, attends a service, in London, Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026, for the "remembrance, justice and repair" before filing a petition to refer three specific questions about trans-Atlantic slavery to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Jamaica's Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange, attends a service, in London, Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
