PGA Tour season tees off
Hovland graduates to full-time pro work
GLENEAGLES, Scotland – Megan Khang walked through the long and narrow tunnel that leads to the first tee at the Solheim Cup on Monday, looked up at the empty grandstands and shouted “Let’s go!”
The rookie can’t wait to see rowdy fans fill the 2,250 seats around the first tee at Gleneagles on Friday morning. She can imagine it all she wants, even say the words out loud, but every Solheim veteran will tell Khang nothing can prepare her for the moment. She simply has to live it.
So it will be for a whopping six American rookies, the most since the inaugural Solheim in 1990 when everyone was a rookie. In 1992 and 2002 there were five rookies on Team USA. The home team won on both occasions.
The Americans and Europeans alike keep telling us these aren’t real rookies. In other words, all nine rookies on both sides have plenty of professional experience. They’ve all competed on the LPGA. Five of the nine have won on the LPGA.
But there’s no getting around the fact that half of the U.S. team has never done this before. And only Lexi Thompson, Lizette Salas and Morgan Pressel have competed on the road at a Solheim Cup.
Even the alternate who replaced Stacy Lewis – Ally McDonald – is a rookie.
U.S. captain Juli Inkster is embracing what she has and not holding the newbies back. “We’re not doing a veteran with a rookie,” said Inkster. “I’m going to send a couple rookies out there together. So they’ve got to grow up sometime. … Everybody’s a rookie once, and I just happen to have six of them. So we’re just going to throw them out there.”
Nancy Lopez, one of Inkster’s assistants, said being a rookie in anything caused her to step up her game. “I wanted to show everybody how good I was,” Lopez said.
There have been several American rookies over the years who proved clutch in their debuts: Paula Creamer (31⁄2 points), Michelle Wie (31⁄2) and Danielle Kang (3). All three were playing on American soil.
These rookies are seasoned, but only well-versed LPGA fans know their stories. Many sports fans will get their first glimpse of players such as Brittany Altomare (who might be paired with Lexi Thompson) along with Marina Alex and McDonald (who might be paired together in alternate shot, judging by a scene on the first tee Wednesday) at the Solheim Cup. This stage might be what pushes some to win on the LPGA for the time. It might push someone like Nelly Korda closer to being No. 1 in the world.
Karen Stupples remembers feeling a bit lost during her first Solheim Cup in 2005. “There wasn’t many rookies on the team,” said Stupples, “and you feel like you’re the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on. People that have been there before know exactly what it’s all about. They’ve been there, they’ve done it. And everybody’s trying to prepare themselves for the battle that’s about to happen. So nobody really has time to take you under their wing and show you the ropes and help you around. So you get lost.”
With half the team in the same position, Stupples reasoned, it has to feel less awkward for the rookies. Plenty of people are having a similar experience.
While Lewis is out as a player, her new role as a helper might be just as useful. Lewis has so much information to share, and now she has more time to share it.
“She walked with us today,” said Kang. “She was explaining the golf course to me. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten that insight if she wasn’t assistant captain.”
Technically, Lewis can’t be an assistant captain because the captain’s agreement stipulates that there can only be three, and Inkster has had the same three each time out: Pat Hurst, Wendy Ward and Lopez.
“Overall, I mean, they’re doing so much that we as rookies don’t really have to think too much about it,” said Khang. “We just have to kind of read the text and kind of wear what they tell us.” Sounds so simple.
The truth is, no one truly knows how a rookie will react until she’s thrown into the caldron. Kang and her boisterous personality lapped up the love in Des Moines, Iowa. Altomare’s chill demeanor and solid game might make her the quietest threat in the competition.
European vice captain Laura Davies wants the sun to shine in Scotland.
“Everyone says we want a bit of rain for the Americans,” said Davies. “No, we want it beautiful weather so the galleries can get out there and enjoy themselves and just cheer us on and be the 13th man out there, because that’s what the home-soil advantage gives you.”
That’s what these six American rookies are about to find out.