With such little turnaround time between the 2023 Solheim Cup’s finish and the 2024 event kicking off later this year, few changes will take place. But we found out about a few of them on Tuesday.
In a press conference at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., which will host the 2024 showdown on Sept. 13-15, U.S. captain Stacy Lewis announced her four assistant captains: Morgan Pressel, Angela Stanford, Paula Creamer and Brittany Lincicome.
Lewis, the captain of the U.S. team last year, also had Pressel and Stanford on as assistants five months ago, when the U.S. and Europe tied 14-14 in Spain. Creamer and Lincicome are new additions, bumping the amount of assistants to four. Natalie Gulbis, however, who was also one of the team’s assistant captains last year, will not be back.
“It was actually a hard decision to figure out where I wanted to go with putting this group together,” Lewis said. “You know, throughout that process, kind of came up with the idea of adding a fourth. Had to go through the channels to make that happen, but I’m excited. I think this group is going to work really well together.”
Creamer, a seven-time Solheim Cupper, is a 10-time LPGA Tour winner and won the 2010 U.S. Women’s Open. Lincicome has won eight times on the LPGA Tour, including twice at the Chevron Championship, an LPGA major. She played on six Solheim Cup teams.
As for the odd-captain out, Lewis said her conversation with Gulbis was “probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do in this whole captaincy.”
“It really boiled down us being prepared for the future,” Lewis said. “Natalie was great. She did everything we asked. She was so positive. I know the girls loved having her there. I just felt like you look back — especially when Juli [Inkster] was captain for those three years — she had the same assistants every time. I feel like that set us back a little bit in not having our captains prepare for the future. So I personally think everybody should be an assistant at least once if not twice prior to being captain.
5 burning questions for the 2024 LPGA season
“There are so many moving parts and so much to learn,” she continued. “It was really more about the future, and unfortunately that kind of took Natalie out of the mix.”
When asked if it was a group that selects Solheim Cup leadership that didn’t see Gulbis as a future captain, or Gulbis herself who wasn’t interested, Lewis brought up the informal criteria that’s used, which requires past Solheim Cup experience and someone who ideally has won major titles.
“I think you look in our past, other than [Rosie Jones], that’s what we have stuck to,” Lewis said. “So I just see us going that way in the future because we have so many players that have won majors that are basically in line to become captains that I think we will continue that way.”
Gulbis had one victory during her LPGA career, winning the Evian Masters in 2007. She never won a major, instead recording seven top 10s in 55 starts. Her best finish in a major was a T3 at the 2006 ANA Inspiration.
The Solheim Cup is a biennial team event, but officials elected to hold it again in 2024 to move it to an even-year schedule, so it runs opposite the Ryder Cup, which, due to a Covid-19 delay in 2020, is now played during odd-numbered years.
The U.S. and Europe tied 14-14 in the Solheim Cup last year, although Europe retained the Cup. The Americans hold the all-time series edge, 10 to 8.