CROMVOIRT, Netherlands – Angela Stanford’s first purchase in Amsterdam was an oversized Nike T-shirt that she planned to sleep in as her luggage had yet to arrive. The U.S. Solheim Cup captain had flown to Europe for a year-to-go promotion and to get a first look at the 2026 venue.
Stanford scheduled two days to look at Bernardus Golf with assistant captain Paula Creamer but could only walk the course that first day as her clubs didn’t make it.
A small team of LPGA officials joined Stanford in the Netherlands and almost half the group had some kind of travel snafu. As Creamer struggled to make a connection in Frankfurt, a luggage-less Stanford made her first note of the scouting trip: need a charter.
“That’s probably my biggest mountain,” she told Golfweek, “is to figure out how to get a charter.”
Team USA used a charter back in 2003 to get to Sweden when Stanford was a Solheim rookie. It wasn’t limited to U.S. players, however, as several European stars, including Annika Sorenstam, joined them on the trip from the LPGA stop in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In 2011, both U.S. and European players took a charter over to Dublin for the matches. The tour hired the Miami Heat’s plane to get players from the Prattville, Alabama, stop to Killeen Castle. Players, caddies, staff and family members were on that flight.
“The earlier you can get the whole team together, the better,” said 2011 U.S. captain Rosie Jones.
Team USA hasn’t used a charter to fly overseas since 2011. Two years ago in Spain, Danielle Kang’s clubs got stuck in Amsterdam and both Kang and captain Stacy Lewis took to Twitter to beg for help. Eventually, Lewis sent her father, Dale, to the airport to retrieve Kang’s clubs.
Needless to say, Lewis is on board with having a charter for 2026.
“It’s just the look of it too,” said Lewis. “If we have players getting on a private plane, it just makes it feel bigger and more important, and it obviously helps out logistically.”
Last night, Team Europe chartered a flight to New York for the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black a full two weeks early. Eleven members of the European team and captain Luke Donald boarded a private plane out of Heathrow on Sunday evening after the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. They later met up with Sepp Straka, who was back home in America with a newborn.
The two-day bonding trip is modeled after a practice trip they put together in Rome that proved successful. In addition to the content on social media, Getty was there to get official photos of Donald in the cockpit with the Ryder Cup trophy.
“I want us both to be there. If we had to come from an LPGA event, I want the Europeans on that flight,” said Stanford. “You want your best to be well-prepared. You want the players to be in the right head space for it.”
Last month near Boston, LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler presented an early look at the 2026 tour schedule, and there’s a “prospect” event in the week leading into next year’s Solheim Cup, to be held Sept. 11-13. The location of that event – if it happens – will, of course, impact the details of a potential charter.
Then there’s the obvious issue of cost. The LPGA will have to come up with the funds or find a partner to help offset the price-tag.
Last week, the tour sent over a videographer to capture the year-out events, and he missed a full day due to storms delaying his flight.
“It’s the same time of the year,” said Stanford. “Are we gonna plan on perfect weather?”
Anything other than a charter, she said, leaves too many things to chance.
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