No more ties? Stacy Lewis has a plan to stop Solheim Cup stalemates

If it’s possible to be on the wrong side of a tied match, the USA experienced it at last year’s Solheim Cup.

Despite not losing, they left Spain empty-handed whilst their European counterparts celebrated and had their photos taken with the trophy.

As was their prerogative, of course. Having won the previous clash at The Inverness Club in 2021, Suzann Pettersen’s side retained the trophy by virtue of a 14-14 halved match at Finca Cortesin.

Still, it was a strange spectacle. Neither team won but only one lost.

Fortunately for the US captain Stacy Lewis, she has a chance to right that wrong next month when the latest instalment of the clash takes place.

“It was hard,” she reflected. “In the moment and kind of the aftermath, I was more concerned about the players. I didn’t want them to see this as a super negative thing because I felt like they did a lot of good things. I was trying to encourage them in all of that.

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“I just remember on the plane ride home, my daughter had fallen asleep. It was just her and I, and I kind of had a little cry. Like, we worked so hard and we put so much into this and it was a tie, you know? But that was the only moment I gave myself.

“As soon as I got home, it just has felt like a carry-over. Call it unfinished business. It’s worked out nicely that Suzann and I are both coming back, because we get to kind of settle the score. That’s the way I feel about it.

“I’m sure she feels differently but I feel like it’s time to settle the score.”

Assuming, of course, we don’t end up with another tie.

Such outcomes are extremely rare. The 2023 result was the first time in 18 editions of the Solheim Cup that it finished honours even, whilst it has occurred twice in 44 Ryder Cups and once in 14 Presidents Cups.

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By her own admission, Lewis would like to see a solution whereby such a result is done away with. A ‘decider’, so to speak.

“I would be open to it but I think it would have to be something that happens at the Ryder Cup as well as the Solheim,” she said. “It would be in our best interests to do it together. That way, for the fans and for everybody watching, it’s the same, whether it’s the men’s or the women’s.

“I would actually see it more of a two-person [decider] because it is a team event, I would like to keep the team element to it versus a single player going out with all the weight of the world on their shoulders.

“I see it more as an alternate-shot. Send two players out, you start out there on 14 or 15 where they got all the [grandstand] builds and let them play it all over.”

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor