Stacy Lewis will lead the U.S. Solheim Cup team when the Americans take on Europe in Spain beginning on Friday, but Lewis will also, win or lose, handle captaincy duties for the next Solheim Cup as well.
Unusual, right? Maybe not so much.
The Solheim Cup started in 1990 and was played in even-numbered years, but it went to odd-numbered years starting in 2003. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks pushed the 2001 Ryder Cup to 2002, which led to the Solheim Cup changing to odd-numbered years so the two events wouldn’t be staged the same year. That issue popped up again recently, when the Covid-19 pandemic moved the 2020 Ryder Cup to 2021.
Now we’re back to reshuffling again. So after this week’s Solheim Cup is played at Finca Cortesín Golf Club in Spain, we’ll run it back in about a year at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., for the 2024 Solheim Cup, and from then on the Solheim Cup will be in even years and the Ryder Cup in odd years.
Earlier this summer at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club in Gold Canyon, Ariz., Lewis explained why she was already asked to captain that 2024 team as well.
“A little strange,” she said, during a walk-and-talk with GOLF.com. “We did it for the players, the continuity for the players. This is their gig and it would have been really hard to have captains kind of overlapping trying to do things (without a year in between), and for the captain you wouldn’t get the fair shakedown of really being able to make it your own.”
For example, team uniforms, which the captain has a say in, are already being discussed for 2024 — even before this year’s event has started.
For more from Lewis, including how she’s been balancing player/captain/mom duties, her strategy for playing par-5s and her go-to swing thought for bunker shots, check out the video above.
