Nine years after controversy and unease, Alison Lee returns to Solheim Cup, excited to be part of the team

GAINESVILLE, Va. – After hesitation, Alison Lee answered.

“I mean, I’m not going to lie, I haven’t really talked to her at all since then,” Lee said Tuesday as part of the Solheim Cup’s pre-tournament press conferences.

Lee was referencing Suzann Pettersen, who for the second time in as many years is captaining the European side. But this had nothing to do with 2024 or 2023. It dates nine years ago to the 2015 matches, where Lee was making her cup debut.

She was 20 then, an LPGA rookie who was a standout collegian at UCLA and all-world amateur.

Thanks to a top-10 run near the end of qualifying, Lee made the team on her own merit. She was the only Solheim Cup rookie on either side.

On Day 2 in St. Leon-Rot, Germany, with the U.S. trailing by 4 points after three sessions, Lee and Brittany Lincicome faced Pettersen and Charley Hull in afternoon fourballs. On the 17^th hole, Lee had a birdie putt to put her team 1 up with one to play. She missed and then scooped up her ball from inside 2 feet.

Tears, tension after match ends in controversy

The Solheim Cup’s resumption of suspended fourballs ended in tears, controversy and confusion Sunday morning.

Pettersen protested that the par putt was not conceded and an official agreed, giving the hole to the Euros, who claimed the 18^th as well to win, 2 up.

Pettersen was defiant. Lee and Hull were in tears. The Americans – and even some Europeans, including Laura Davies, a vice captain to Pettersen on this and last year’s teams, but a commentator for the ’15 matches – were outraged.

“I would say in the moment it was tough. I was very intimidated at the time, like I said. I was a rookie on tour. I didn’t really know any of the girls on my team either. I wasn’t really good friends with them,” Lee said Tuesday.

“I just felt like the newbie, young girl, who kind of made it on the team, and everyone thankfully just rallied behind me and were so warm and welcoming and did everything they could to support me.”

Rally, they did as the U.S. used the motivation to win the singles session by 5 points and capture the cup for the first time in six years.

That was Lee’s first and, until now, only Solheim Cup experience.

Pettersen, under increasing criticism, issued an apology for the incident on the Monday after the matches. It was mostly forgotten about over time as Pettersen authored THE defining moment of her career and, arguably, in Solheim Cup history with a professional walk-off clincher in 2019.

Captaining the Euros to a retention of the cup last year only galvanized the positives of her legacy.

For Lee, the last nine years have been a bit of everything, from agonizing to tantalizing.

She lost and regained her LPGA card but hasn’t won on tour. She did, however, earn her second Ladies European Tour victory last October, months after getting a call from U.S. captain Stacy Lewis that Lee wouldn’t be receiving a pick for the ’23 team.

“I was very heartbroken when Stacy gave me a call and had a conversation with me and told me I wasn’t on the team,” Lee said. “Yeah, that really motivated me to have a really good year this year.”

She started working her way onto the ’24 team (the cup is being contested in back-to-back years in order to get onto a even-year schedule) with three runner-up finishes to conclude last season.

This campaign began uneasily as she suffered a bite from her boyfriend’s dog that resulted in a trip to the hospital and missed starts in the first three events. When she returned, a tie for 51^st in Singapore immediately made her wonder if all the progress she had made a few months prior was just … gone.

Those fears were immediately relieved with top-10s in her next two tournaments. And while she’s still seeking her first tour title, she played well enough to earn a spot on the U.S. team and avoid a phone call – fortunate or otherwise – from returning captain Lewis.

Nine years later, Lee is 29 and there are five teammates her senior, six her junior, and she knows them all. All the assistant captains and even Lewis herself, were part of that victorious ’15 team. In fact, Lee and Lexi Thompson are the only current U.S. players who have ever experienced a Solheim Cup victory.

Lee said she doesn’t remember too much about her maiden matches, and what she did recall wasn’t overwhelmingly positive.

“I missed the opening gala because I had like food poisoning that week. I had no family there. I knew no one on the team. I just felt like such an outsider,” she said.

But it shouldn’t be forgotten that, in the aftermath of that controversial inflection point, a 20-year-old rookie won her singles match, 3 and 1, over Gwladys Nocera. And that the U.S. won – by a point.

“To be able to play on the team now, being more familiar with all the girls and being really good friends with all of them, even though it’s only my second time, I do feel like a veteran out here because I’ve been on tour for so long and I’ve played alongside these girls for a long time,” Lee said.

“Definitely a very different experience.”