The European Ladies’ Team Championship is an annual competition organized by the European Golf Association, comprising a maximum of 20 six-women teams, each of which is nominated for participation by its national golf authority. Female amateur player must be citizens of the country they represent with a playing handicap of a certain number (9.0 in 2019) or better.

The tournament begins with two rounds of 18-hole stoke play to decide the seeded draw for the match play portion of the competition. The best five scores each day count towards the team’s aggregate score. Teams are then divided into three flights based on stroke play performance. The first flight sets up as Team 1 v Team 8, Team 2 v Team 7, Team 3 v Team 6 and Team 4 v Team 8. The second flight operates on similar lines, with the third flight involving a round-robin for the remaining four teams on Days 3, 4 and 5 of the event.

Match play scoring is decided by teams playing two morning foursomes and five afternoon singles, with a win in either a foursome or single match gaining one point for the team. If a match is level after 18 holes, extra holes are played to arrive at a result. When the overall match outcome has been decided, later ties may be considered as halved if all match participants agree.

The winning team doesn’t actually get to keep the trophy for a year – it’s retained by their national golf authority which will then engrave, insure and return it to the EGA the following year – but team members are presented with a gold medal, while competitors in the runners-up and third-placed positions receive silver and bronze medals, respectively.

The first tournament was held the same year as the Men’s Team Championship in 1959 but, while their male counterparts were teeing up at El Prat in Barcelona, the ladies were playing at Golf- und Land-Club Köln in Germany. The French team were the first winners, defeating Italy in the final, and this result was repeated two years later when the second edition was hosted by Circolo Golf Villa d’Este outside Como in Italy.

The Italian team just missed out on winning on home soil against France in 1961 but such a feat has been accomplished several times: England (1971 at Ganton and 1991 at Wentworth); France (1975 at St Cloud and 1999 at St Germain); Ireland (1979 at Hermitage); and Sweden (2008 at Stenungsund).

Team England has won the competition 10 times, followed by Sweden with 9 wins, France with 8 then Spain with 5. After thirty-six editions of the contest up until 2019, only four of these tournaments had been claimed by teams outside the “Big Four”: Ireland twice (1979, 1983), Belgium at Rungsted in 1963 and Germany in Bled in 2009.

Spain and Italy have both hosted the tournament of four occasions, with England, Portugal and Sweden each staging the championship three times.

Three courses do not appear below as they’re currently not listed in our rankings: Golf de Meis (2001) in Spain, Karlstad (2005) in Sweden, and Montando (2017) in Portugal.