Solheim vow

New Solheim Cup skipper Alison Nicholas told Golf Night how Europe must improve in the next two years.

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On Sky Sports New Solheim Cup skipper Alison Nicholas insists Europe's women must make drastic improvements in the singles if they are to beat the USA in two years time. Nicholas has been confirmed as Europe's captain for the 2009 event and speaking on Golf Night, she blamed a poor performance in the singles as the reason for Europe's defeat in Halmstad this year. Helen Alfredsson's side were leading going into the singles on the final afternoon, but after Catriona Matthew won the opening match against Laura Diaz, Europe won just two more before crashing to an overall 16-12 defeat. And Nicholas demanded an improvement, saying: "We always struggle with the singles and although Catriona Matthew got us off to a good start, a lot of the other players didn't play well. "I think Suzann Pettersen played well but got beaten by Stacy Prammanasudh who shot a 67, so it all went pear-shaped really. "I'm not sure why they aren't performing. Possibly it's down to belief. I think the first few players played well, but then some of the other players like Tinning, Johnson, Hjorth and Nocera said they didn't play well at all. "The course was playing long and Helen knew we had the longer hitters and thought that would be to our advantage, but unfortunately it wasn't.

Buzzing

"I thought she did a good job with her captaincy and the girls played well in the four-balls and the foursomes, but I think we've only won two series of singles in 10 attempts so it's something that I'm obviously going to be thinking about. "We need to address that situation and get the players to think a little bit more single-mindedly." Nicholas also denied that motivation was a problem and insisted this year's skipper Alfredson had created a positive vibe in the camp. "Alfie's crazy and there was lots of laughs," she added. "She was a great motivator and I learned lots from that. There wasn't a problem there and the players were buzzing. We came out of the four-balls really well and we were on a high. "Perhaps we didn't realise we had to get on with it and play the singles and that's something I've got to think about in the future and make sure it doesn't happen again."