“There’s no way I’m not going to be on that team.”
That’s what Lauren Coughlin told herself last year when she learned the Solheim Cup would be played in her home state of Virginia. Seven years ago, Coughlin was competing on the Epson Tour and had earned just under $9,000 in prize money. When she contemplated quitting the game, her college coach at the University of Virginia, Kim Lewellen, who is now at Wake Forest, told her that she hadn’t yet reached her full potential.
Coughlin has since logged 103 starts on the LPGA, quickly following her maiden win, at the CPKC Women’s Open in July, with another title at the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open just three weeks later. She’s currently a career-best 14th in the Rolex Rankings.
Coughlin’s path to qualifying for this year’s U.S. Solheim Cup team is one of persistence, patience and perseverance.
And it can be traced to her childhood in Minnesota.
“My dad traveled a lot when I was little, so I was attached to his hip when he was home,” Coughlin said. “When he wanted to go to the golf course, I would tag along.”
Father-daughter golf dates morphed into Coughlin taking an independent interest in the game. Her parents signed her up for the First Tee when she was 10 years old after they moved from Minnesota to Chesapeake, Virginia. She loved those nine-hole tournaments every Saturday.
“I wanted to win my age group and beat all the boys,” Coughlin said.
The competitive gene had rooted itself deeply in Coughlin. She could have been a starter at a smaller school. Instead, she decided that challenging herself to play at a Division-I program would be more beneficial.
“I knew that if I was one of the better players on the team, I wouldn’t be motivated to get better,” said Coughlin, who chose to walk on at Virginia, where she redshirted her first year. “I knew I wouldn’t be traveling right away, so it forced me to get better and practice.”
The next season, Coughlin initially struggled to qualify and only played in two events. But by her third year, she led the team in scoring average. Two seasons later, as a senior, Coughlin won the 2016 ACC Championship for her first collegiate title. Following the trophy presentation, her boyfriend and now husband, John Pond, proposed on the 18th green. Later that year, Coughlin declared herself a professional golfer, and through LPGA Q-School, earned full status on the Epson Tour for 2017.
Elation turned into misery, and after only a few months, Coughlin was ready to hang up her clubs. Midway through 2017, Coughlin went to Lewellen’s office, bawling and telling her coach that she didn’t want to play pro golf anymore.
“I made three cuts and earned hardly any money,” Coughlin said. “I was also overwhelmed with such a new environment. She told me that I’m not the only one to feel like this, and it’s OK. She told me to take a break and go to second stage of Q-School, and if I made it to Q-Series, she would caddie for me.”
Coughlin made it, Lewellen kept her promise and Coughlin ended up earning an LPGA card for the first time.
Coughlin’s journey to becoming a Tour winner, though, was far from linear. As a rookie in 2018, Coughlin only made four cuts in 18 starts and subsequently lost her card. She could only regain conditional status for 2019 through Q-Series, meaning she could count on just one start, the Lotte Championship in Hawaii, before the first reshuffle.
“I said to myself, if I make the cut in Hawaii, I’ll play LPGA for the rest of the year, but if not, I’m going to go all in on the Epson Tour and try to get my card by finishing in the top 10,” Coughlin said. “I ended up missing the cut so I went all in on Epson.”
She finished No. 15 in points, missing out on getting her LPGA card back by a few thousand dollars.
“But that was the year,” she added, “where I felt that I was really getting the hang of tour life and seeing progress.”
Coughlin made five LPGA starts in 2020, her best finish a T-34 at the Drive On Championship, and the next year she turned limited status into 14 events, again starting in Hawaii, and four top-20s. Her first top-10 on the LPGA came at the 2022 Mediheal Championship, and despite three missed cuts in majors last season, Coughlin recorded a career-best major showing of T-15 at the 2023 KPMG Women’s PGA.
With her career trending entering this year, Coughlin and her husband, John, who worked as an associate director of development at Virginia, decided to take a leap of faith.
“John wasn’t loving his job,” Coughlin said. “One day he offered up the idea of quitting his job and coming out with me full-time. At first, I felt a lot of pressure being the sole income, and he had really good health insurance working for the university. But then eventually I realized it would be cool for us to be able to do this together, so we decided to try it out for a year and see how it goes.”
John’s last day of work was March 1.
Coughlin’s results since March 1: Eight top-10s, including a T-3 at the Chevron Championship, a near victory at the Evian Championship and two wins.
“I saw this quote from Xander [Schauffele] after he won The Open where he said that he had to learn not to dream too early about winning,” Coughlin said. “That’s exactly what I did earlier this summer. Come Canada [CPKC Women’s Open], I was trying to enjoy it as much as I could and not think about winning.”
Armed with her husband’s support and better focus, Coughlin birdied two of her final four holes at Earl Grey Golf Club to beat Mao Saigo by two shots. Three weeks later, she stuck to that strategy to win in Scotland.
“I played great on Saturday (6-under 66), and I could feel myself getting really excited and was thinking about winning again,” Coughlin said. “I talked to my caddie, Terry McNamara, about it and Dr. Julie Amato, the LPGA tour’s sports psychologist, and they both told me this feeling is normal; acknowledge it, and then get back into the process of controlling what I can control, which is all the cliche stuff, but it really does work.”
TROON, SCOTLAND - AUGUST 18: Lauren Coughlin of United States pose for a photo with the trophy after winning the ISPS HANDA Women’s Scottish Open on the 18th green during the final round of the ISPS HANDA Women’s Scottish Open at Dundonald Links Golf Course on August 18, 2024 in Troon, Scotland. (Photo by Paul Devlin/Getty Images)
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Cliche or not, the nerves Coughlin felt over her winning putts in Canada and Scotland won’t come close to what she will feel Friday on the first tee at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia, where she will be this Solheim Cup’s local favorite.
Not since Tammie Green in 1998 in Dublin, Ohio, has a Solheim Cup been contested in a U.S. player’s home state. Coughlin and her husband still live in Charlottesville, which is about two hours from the course.
“It’s very special for me that I live in Virginia,” Coughlin said. “John and I have a ton of friends that will get to watch me for the first time. ... I’ll focus on nailing my routine with Terry, that way I can enjoy the environment without getting distracted.”
Not long ago, Coughlin was a name that most casual golf fans didn’t recognize, stuck in a rut on the development circuit, not close to competing in a Solheim Cup.
This summer, she’s proven to be a name to remember.
“I’ve taken a huge leap this year,” Coughlin said, “so now I’m thinking, oh my, what’s better from now?”
Now that she’s on that team, winning back the Cup would be a good start.