Buoyed by ace, Europe rallies to cut deficit against U.S. after 1st day of Solheim Cup

With the help of a hole-in-one, a hole-out from the fairway and a chip-in, Europe rallied against the United States after being swept in the opening foursome matches at the Solheim Cup, winning two of the afternoon fourball matches to reduce the Americans' lead to 5-3 on Friday.

Emily Pedersen made a hole-in-one on the par-3 12th to ignite the Europeans' comeback after the U.S. had its best-ever start, then Gemma Dryburgh holed out from the fairway on the 16th and Leona Maguire chipped in from off the green on the 18th to make it close again for Europe at Finca Cortesin in southern Spain.

"I'm really proud of the way the entire team fought back in the afternoon," European captain Suzann Pettersen said. "It's not easy to stand on that tee in the afternoon knowing you're down four after the first session. So I got to say, hat's off to all my players, the way they fought and the way they showed their character on this Friday afternoon. You get knocked down, you stand up, and you try it again, and that's kind of what I told the girls and they did."

The Europeans also got a boost from home-crowd favourite Carlota Ciganda, the only Spaniard in the team. After sitting out the morning session, Ciganda made six birdies in a 4 and 2 win with Linn Grant against Ally Ewing and Angel Yin.

Maguire's chip-in helped lead to a 1-up win with Georgia Hall against Lexi Thompson and Lilia Vu. Dryburgh's hole-out came in a tie with Madelene Sagstrom against Megan Khang and rookie sensation Rose Zhang.

Pedersen's hole-in-one was on the 178-yard 12th. Her shot landed on the bank to the left of the green and the ball bounced back toward the hole and went rolling several meters (yards) to the bottom of the cup. Pedersen jumped up and down at the