Stacy Lewis, the captain of Team USA, has expressed her disappointment in the golfing world for not taking advantage of the opportunity to better connect the Solheim Cup and Ryder Cup this year.
For the first time ever, both events were played over successive weeks, owing to the scheduling conflicts that arose when the Ryder Cup was postponed by 12 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Solheim Cup was held in Ohio, with Europe winning for the third consecutive time, three weeks before the Ryder Cup, which saw Team USA triumph with a record-breaking margin at Whistling Straits. This year, the two contests are being played back-to-back in the Mediterranean.
Lewis believes more should have been done to connect the two tournaments.
During a press conference prior to the Solheim Cup, Lewis expressed her opinion that the events should have been marketed together as “two weeks in Europe, two cups for play”.
She felt that this was a missed opportunity for the sport of golf and wished that people could have looked beyond sponsorship issues and focused on how to work together.
Lewis stressed that she wanted to see the game of golf, in general, being promoted, rather than just women’s golf.
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Although Lewis admitted to spending more time than she should have on the matter, she expressed her disappointment that the two events were not marketed correctly.
She acknowledged that this might have been due to timing or the fact that it was too late in the process.
However, she believes that going forward, the game of golf needs to do better and get on the same page.
While the Solheim Cup is switching to even-numbered years to avoid clashing with the Ryder Cup, Lewis feels that the two events should continue to be held in the same period. She thinks that two weeks of back-to-back contests could be really cool for the game of golf if they could continue it in the future.
When asked whether Team USA were the favourites to win the Solheim Cup, Lewis admitted that Europe had won the last two and had a great team with a ton of experience in the event.
Nonetheless, she loved the chances of Team USA and believed that the rookies would have a great week and hopefully surprise a lot of people.
