With the Solheim Cup coming to Toledo’s Inverness Club in 2021, the LPGA announced that Pat Hurst would lead Team USA. Juli Inkster has served as captain for the last three Solheim Cups registering two wins and a loss. She was asked to do it again, but respectfully declined, “been there done that.”
Pat Hurst competed on the LPGA Tour for 20 years from 1995-2015. She was named the Rookie of the Year in 1995 and during her career Hurst won six LPGA Tour titles including the 1998 Nabisco Dinah Shore Invitational. Hurst was also a member of five Solheim Cups and compiled a 10-7-3 record. Most recently she served as one of Inkster’s assistant captains in the past three Solheim Cups.
Hurst said, 
“I thought the call might be coming, but I had no idea if it would be good, or bad news. For the last six months, I’ve been thinking that my time as an assistant Solheim Cup captain in 2015, 2017 and 2019 were, some of the greatest experiences of my professional career. They have prepared me to be captain in 2021 at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio. I loved being out on the first tee in that amphitheater setting with sound so loud you could feel it. No cheers in women’s golf match the Solheim Cup. Nothing makes your hair stand up or causes tingles to run down your arms like the drama and intensity of those three days.
I also loved the strategy and detail, the planning, motivating and relationship building. Juli relied on all her assistants – Nancy Lopez, Wendy Ward and me – to engage with the players and to see who was playing well with whom and what holes suited one kind of shot over another. We offered our opinions about the lineup. And we handled a lot of the details so the players could focus on playing.”
The Solheim Cup is a biennial competition between the best women golfers from the Ladies European Tour (LET) versus the 12 best from the LPGA Tour. In 2019 every member of the European Solheim Cup Team also competed on the LPGA on a regular basis.
The Solheim Cup is named in honor of Karsten Solheim, the founder of Karsten Manufacturing Corporation, which makes PING golf equipment. In 1990, the Solheim family, in conjunction with the LPGA and the LET, developed the concept and became the title sponsor for the Solheim Cup. Today it has grown into the most prestigious international women’s professional golf team event.
The 2021 Solheim Cup will be held at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, on Sept. 4-6. In 2019,
The pressure will be on Hurst and the American Team to reclaim the Solheim Cup from Europe after they were defeated at Gleneagles.
Advance Solheim Cup tickets are on sale at: www.solheimcupusa.com. For more information, visit www.solheimcup.com.
