Solheim Cup housing controversy leads to ‘awkward’ situation
U.S. Solheim Cup captain Stacy Lewis speaks to the media on Wednesday.
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The Solheim Cup has not been immune to controversy, and this year’s event is no different — and the competition hasn’t even started yet.
The latest incident? It involves housing. But the good news here is that it already seems to be put to bed.
The 19th playing of the Solheim Cup is at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., which has about a half-dozen houses scattered among the practice area. Two of them were reserved as “team rooms” for the U.S. and European squads — although they are all staying off-site at hotels — and as the host team the Americans got first pick on the house they wanted. The Europeans then took the other.
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But it didn’t end there. While the Americans loved their spot — eight bathrooms, eight showers and the larger of the two homes — the Europeans were actually closer to the driving range.
“I don’t know if they’re happy with their choice,” said European veteran Anna Nordqvist, “but we’re obviously very happy to be right there on 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 the attached hitting bays, having tables and chairs outside, etc. — were in violation of Solheim Cup contracts.
“They are right on the very back of the range. They have their music playing all the time, whereas the U.S. team has to come out of their house, walk past the European team house and all the way down to the other end of the range to get to their side of the range,” Weir said. “[Captain] Suzann Pettersen enjoys playing her tunes as well, and I think that has got under the skin of the U.S., and they are claiming that in their contract of the Solheim Cup this is not allowed.”
U.S. captain Stacy Lewis addressed the situation on Wednesday.
“The closeness is a little bit awkward with the driving range and everything being right there, but we’ve worked through a few things,” she said. “We’ve worked through a few issues. But we’re in a good spot now.”
As for some of those “issues” Lewis mentioned?
“Their team room kind of exploded onto the driving range a little bit, but we reeled it in. It’s all good,” Lewis said. “We adjusted the way the range was set up a little bit and moved the U.S. team further down so Europe could do what they wanted basically.
“The inside of their cottage doesn’t have a lot of room for tables, so their tables have to be outside,” she continued. “It was just our players were warming up, and they’re there eating breakfast and talking. We were just trying to get everybody some space so they didn’t have to listen to them eating breakfast. That’s all. There’s no bad beef.”
Although if this turns out to be the biggest controversy the Solheim Cup sees this week, the next few days should be a breeze. It will be hard to top what happened last year in Rome, when “HatGate” — and a screaming match that took place in the parking lot — took over the 2023 Ryder Cup.
The Solheim Cup tees off for its first day of competition on Friday morning.
“I think at the end of the day, this is a friendly competition between the U.S. and Europe,” Nordqvist said. “Yeah, we’re going to really want to win, but I think that’s what so great about the Solheim Cup is that win or lose, at the end of the day, I think women’s golf wins coming Sunday afternoon.”
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