length. I just dug deep toward the end and had the mentality of taking no prisoners.”

No doubt that was the right strategy, but Team USA still needed something from Kerr, the most experienced member of the foursome, and/or Thompson, the top-ranked player (No. 4 in the world) in the four-day competition.

Kerr never trailed against England’s Mel Reid, though her 4-up lead after five holes did shrink to 1-up after No. 14. Kerr then won the next two holes to close out the match, and the 2 points awarded for that victory gave Team USA an insurmountable 13 points.

Kerr was surprised when her teammates swarmed her on the green.

“I just tried to take care of my match,” she said. “I didn’t know that it came down to my winning.”

It did after Thompson dropped the last U.S. singles match to Korea’s So Yeon Ryu 2 and 1. That outcome didn’t matter.

“This is huge, unbelievable for us,” Lewis said. “To be called the best golfing nation is so satisfying. We had zero points the first day, and we still ended up with the most. It’s just a testament to these girls and their will to want to win this thing.”

Korea, the top-seeded team (U.S. was No. 2) when the competition started, was second with 12 points, while England and Chinese Taipei each had 11 and Japan 8. Korea was without its best player, Inbee Park. She sat out with a left-thumb injury and also will bypass her title defense at this week’s Women’s British Open in hopes the injury will heal in time for next month’s Olympics in Brazil.

Even without Park, however, Korea fielded a foursome in which all members were ranked in the top 12 of the Rolex World Rankings.

Korea’s chances also were hampered by the weather.

Saturday’s late-afternoon storms forced two best-ball matches involving Korea to be pushed back to Sunday, so the team had to be back on the course at 7 a.m. to secure its berth in the 10 singles matches.

Korea finished both early matches vs. Australia with victories but couldn’t sustain that momentum once the singles began.

Neither could Japan, which won the wild-card spot in singles after eliminating Thailand and China in a rousing sudden-death playoff decided by Ayaka Watanabe’s 30-foot eagle putt.

• For more golf news, visit lenziehmongolf.com. Len can be contacted by email at lenziehm@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ZiehmLen and check out his posts at Facebook.com/lenziehmongolf.