PRATTVILLE, Ala. — Juli Inkster, a pro golfer since 1983, was working on her game on the driving range at the recent Navistar LPGA Classic wearing an eggplant-colored skirt that hung loosely off her hips and fell an inch above her knees. The rookie Ryann O’Toole walked by in a sky blue micro-miniskirt.

Can the generation gap be measured in hemlines?

At first glance, Inkster and O’Toole appear as different as their eras: Inkster, 51, is the short-haired tomboy, all grown up, a 31-time Tour winner who rode the first wave of opportunities created by Title IX to a Hall of Fame career. O’Toole, 24, is the long-haired glamour girl whose big break came when she appeared on a reality TV show.

In truth, Inkster, the wily Solheim Cup veteran, and O’Toole, the wide-eyed first-timer, share more than a place on the U.S. team that will compete in the biennial event today through Sunday in Dunsany, Ireland, against a European squad led by Suzann Pettersen, of Norway.

Both are gifted athletes and fierce competitors who discovered golf relatively late.

Neither grew up imagining she would one day represent the U.S. in a prestigious team event. There was no such opportunity for women when Inkster was growing up. The first Solheim Cup took place in 1990, when she was in her eighth year on the LPGA Tour.

O’Toole’s initial dreams of representing her country revolved around softball at the Olympics. She played baseball until she was 10, then spent a few years as an infielder and pitcher on a traveling softball team. She also surfed and built skateboard ramps with the neighborhood boys. She was 13 when she accompanied a friend to a golf range for the first time. Some of her drives traveled more than 200 yards, which caught the eye of a club pro. He told O’Toole’s parents she had a promising future. O’Toole, burned out on softball, was game to give golf a try.

“This is easy,” she remembered thinking, “because the ball is still when you hit it.”

At San Clemente High School in California, O’Toole played golf on the girls’ team, which was not cool.

“The popular girls played soccer or were on the dance team,” she said.

After high school, she played golf at UCLA, where she earned a sociology degree in 2009. Her confidence and her public profile soared after she survived an audition to appear as a contestant on Golf Channel’s “The Big Break.”

Like O’Toole, Inkster had no expectations of playing in this year’s Solheim Cup. In 2009, Inkster was adamant that eight appearances were enough. In January she told Jones she would be happy to travel to Ireland as a nonplaying assistant.

Then she qualified on points. Inkster’s main concern, she said, was her age. She worried that her presence in team meetings — where secrets and insecurities are shared — might make the other players uncomfortable, as if their mothers were in the room.

In the end, her conscientiousness prevailed over her self-consciousness.

In middle school, Inkster tried out for the cheerleading team, which is what all the cool girls did, and made it.

“Worst six months of my life,” she said, laughing.

The next year, she eschewed cheerleading to play on the girls basketball team. In her last two years of high school, Inkster played varsity golf alongside the boys because there was no girls team.

“Growing up, I didn’t really care what people thought,” Inkster said. “In order to play sports in my era, you had to have a strong sense of who you were because you got labeled a jock.”

Inkster was among the first wave of women to attend San Jose State on an athletic scholarship. She was a three-time U.S. Amateur champion, and in 1984, her first full year on the LPGA Tour, she won two majors.

Inkster has won four of her seven major championships since becoming a mother to her daughters Hayley, 21, and Cori, 17. Her success in balancing a family and a career helped shatter the long-held belief that an athletic career and motherhood did not, could not, mix.

The generational joshing between the players often involves accessories. The younger ones tease Inkster for not owning a designer handbag until four years ago, for having golf shoes that are not color coordinated to match her outfits unless she happens to be wearing white, and for not being able to keep track of her sunglasses.

But as O’Toole pointed out, Inkster’s most prized accessories are her children. “Which is really cool,” she said.

Inkster has always dressed in an age-appropriate manner. She said she was not about to change just to fit in with her Solheim Cup teammates.

“If you were to put stilettos and a short skirt and makeup on me,” she said, “it would look like Halloween.”

Solheim cup

Site: Dunsany, Ireland.

Schedule: Today-Sunday.

Course: Killeen Castle (6,531 yards, par 72).

Television: Golf Channel (Thursday-Friday, 11:30 p.m.-10 a.m.; Sunday, 2-8:30 a.m.).

Format: Team match play. Today and Saturday, four morning foursome (alternate-shot) and four afternoon fourball (best-ball) matches; Sunday, 12 singles matches.