USA Cup captain Stacy Lewis speaks to the media on Wednesday.
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The Solheim Cup was not immune to controversyand this year’s event is no different — and the competition hasn’t even started yet.
The latest incident? It includes housing. But the good news here is that it already seems to have been put to bed.
It is in the 19th game of the Solheim Cup Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., which has about a half-dozen homes scattered around the practice area. Two of them were reserved as “team rooms” for American and European teams – although everyone is staying abroad in hotels – and as the host team the Americans got the house they wanted first. Then the Europeans took the other.
But it didn’t end there. While Americans loved their place—eight bathrooms, eight showers, and the larger of the two houses—Europeans were actually closer to walking distance.
“I don’t know if they’re happy with their choice,” said European veteran Anna Nordqvist, “but we’re obviously very happy to be there in the range.”
Sky Sports’ Jamie Weir explained the situation on Wednesday, reporting that the U.S. was claiming some of the things the European team was doing — opening up the penalty spots, having tables and chairs outside, etc. – were in violation of the Solheim Cup contracts.
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“They’re right at the bottom of the range. They have their music playing all the time, while the US team has to go out of their house, go past the European team’s house and all the way to the other end of the range to get to their side of the range,” Weir said. “(Captain) Suzann Pettersen likes to play her tunes, too, and I think that gets under the US’s skin and they’re claiming that in their Solheim Cup contract it’s not allowed.”
US captain Stacy Lewis addressed the situation on Wednesday.
“The proximity is a little difficult with the driving range and that’s fine, but we’ve been working on a few things,” she said. “We have been working on several issues. But we’re in a good place now.”
What about some of those “issues” that Lewis mentioned?
“Their team room blew up a little bit on the drive, but we got it in. It’s all good,” Lewis said. “We tweaked the way the distance was set up a little bit and moved Team USA lower so that Europe could basically do what they wanted to do.
“Inside their villa there isn’t much room for tables, so their tables have to be outside,” she continued. “It was just our players warming up, and they’re out there eating breakfast and talking. We were just trying to give everybody some space so they didn’t have to hear them eating breakfast. That’s all. There is no bad beef.”
Although if this turns out to be the biggest controversy at the Solheim Cup this week, the next few days should be easy. It will be difficult to see what happened last year in Rome, when “Gate of Hat” — and a screaming match that took place in the parking lot — took over the 2023 Ryder Cup.
The Solheim Cup kicks off for the first day of competition on Friday morning.
“I think at the end of the day, this is a friendly competition between the US and Europe,” Nordqvist said. “Yeah, we’d really like to win, but I think that’s what’s great about the Solheim Cup, win or lose, at the end of the day, I think the women’s golf wins come Sunday afternoon. “
