GAINESVILLE, Va. – After hesitation, Alison Lee answered.
“I imply, I’m not going to lie, I haven’t actually talked to her in any respect since then,” Lee stated Tuesday as a part of the Solheim Cup’s pre-tournament press conferences.
Lee was referencing Suzann Pettersen, who for the second time in as a few years is captaining the European aspect. However this had nothing to do with 2024 or 2023. It dates 9 years in the past to the 2015 matches, the place Lee was making her cup debut.
She was 20 then, an LPGA rookie who was a standout collegian at UCLA and all-world novice.
Due to a top-10 run close to the top of qualifying, Lee made the workforce on her personal benefit. She was the one Solheim Cup rookie on both aspect.
On Day 2 in St. Leon-Rot, Germany, with the U.S. trailing by 4 factors after three periods, Lee and Brittany Lincicome confronted Pettersen and Charley Hull in afternoon fourballs. On the 17th gap, Lee had a birdie putt to place her workforce 1 up with one to play. She missed after which scooped up her ball from inside 2 ft.
The Solheim Cup’s resumption of suspended fourballs resulted in tears, controversy and confusion Sunday morning.
Pettersen protested that the par putt was not conceded and an official agreed, giving the outlet to the Euros, who claimed the 18th as effectively to win, 2 up.
Pettersen was defiant. Lee and Hull had been in tears. The People – and even some Europeans, together with Laura Davies, a vice captain to Pettersen on this and final 12 months’s groups, however a commentator for the ’15 matches – had been outraged.
“I might say within the second it was robust. I used to be very intimidated on the time, like I stated. I used to be a rookie on tour. I didn’t actually know any of the women on my workforce both. I wasn’t actually good buddies with them,” Lee stated Tuesday.
“I simply felt just like the beginner, younger woman, who type of made it on the workforce, and everybody fortunately simply rallied behind me and had been so heat and welcoming and did the whole lot they might to assist me.”
Rally, they did because the U.S. used the motivation to win the singles session by 5 factors and seize the cup for the primary time in six years.
That was Lee’s first and, till now, solely Solheim Cup expertise.
Pettersen, underneath growing criticism, issued an apology for the incident on the Monday after the matches. It was largely forgotten about over time as Pettersen authored a THE defining second of her profession and, arguably, in Solheim Cup historical past with knowledgeable walk-off clincher in 2019.
Captaining the Euros to a retention of the cup final 12 months solely galvanized the positives of her legacy.
For Lee, the final 9 years have been a little bit of the whole lot, from agonizing to tantalizing.
She misplaced and regained her LPGA card however hasn’t received on tour. She did, nonetheless, earn her second Girls European Tour victory final October, months after getting a name from U.S. captain Stacy Lewis that Lee wouldn’t be receiving a decide for the ’23 workforce.
“I used to be very heartbroken when Stacy gave me a name and had a dialog with me and informed me I wasn’t on the workforce,” Lee stated. “Yeah, that actually motivated me to have a very good 12 months this 12 months.”
She began working her method onto the ’24 workforce (the cup is being contested in back-to-back years with the intention to get onto a even-year schedule) with three runner-up finishes to conclude final season.
This marketing campaign started uneasily as she suffered a chunk from her boyfriend’s canine that resulted in a visit to the hospital and missed begins within the first three occasions. When she returned, a tie for 51st in Singapore instantly made her surprise if all of the progress she had made a number of months prior was simply … gone.
These fears had been instantly relieved with top-10s in her subsequent two tournaments. And whereas she’s nonetheless looking for her first tour title, she performed effectively sufficient to earn a spot on the U.S. workforce and keep away from a telephone name – lucky or in any other case – from returning captain Lewis.
9 years later, Lee is 29 and there are 5 teammates her senior, six her junior, and she or he is aware of all of them. All of the assistant captains and even Lewis herself, had been a part of that victorious ’15 workforce. Actually, Lee and Lexi Thompson are the one present U.S. gamers who’ve ever skilled a Solheim Cup victory.
Lee stated she doesn’t keep in mind an excessive amount of about her maiden matches, and what she did recall wasn’t overwhelmingly optimistic.
“I missed the opening gala as a result of I had like meals poisoning that week. I had no household there. I knew nobody on the workforce. I simply felt like such an outsider,” she stated.
Nevertheless it shouldn’t be forgotten that, within the aftermath of that controversial inflection level, a 20-year-old rookie received her singles match, 3 and 1, over Gwladys Nocera. And that the U.S. received – by a degree.
“To have the ability to play on the workforce now, being extra acquainted with all the women and being actually good buddies with all of them, despite the fact that it’s solely my second time, I do really feel like a veteran out right here as a result of I’ve been on tour for therefore lengthy and I’ve performed alongside these women for a very long time,” Lee stated.
“Positively a really totally different expertise.”
