The LPGA has announced that Juli Inkster will be named the next captain of the United States Solheim Cup team, which will take place in 2015 in Germany. The announcement is not much of a shock, as it was a matter of if, not when, Inkster was going to receive her shot at the captaincy. Inkster is considered a shot in the arm of an American team that got absolutely smoked on home soil last year.
A lot of the speculation was that they would wait to make Inkster the captain until the matches returned to the United States, but Team USA probably felt as if there was no longer a time to wait. Inkster is the most prolific American Solheim Cup player of all time, and provides knowledge and excitement to a team that desperately needs it. Team USA will enter the Solheim Cup as underdogs for the first time when the matches are played in Germany.
Inkster has wasted no time in naming her first assistant captain, Pat Hurst, and has said that she may not add another, claiming she trusts Hurst so much that another voice may be a distraction. Clearly this is a job that Inkster has been thinking about for quite some time.
Inkster will preside over a completely different Solheim Cup team - perhaps not in personnel, but in attitude and approach. While Meg Mallon had a more hands off approach and allowed the ladies to do as they wished, Inkster will be far more gritty. I would doubt that you would see the painted faces and fingernails like you saw last year, as Inkster will try to steer the direction away from "having fun" to "must win". After the utter failure that was the 2013 Solheim Cup, this will be a welcome approach.
There has been no announcement from the other side as to who will take over for Liselotte Neumann, provided she decides not to take up captaincy for another year. Laura Davies is the front runner, the "Juli Inkster of Europe", if you will, but I don't know if Europe will use that card just yet. They are playing with house money, and it may be a better idea to save Davies for when they truly need her, like when the Cup returns to the USA. Helen Alfredsson will get a look, though I bet that would be a complete disaster, as Alfredsson has never been a personable person, and will likely turn a lot of people off and won't give the players anyone to play for. She also has a tendency to say really dumb stuff. Iben Tinning deserves a shot at captaincy after playing in four events, though she may need a turn as vice captain before they trust her with the reigns. A dark horse, and one I think Team Europe should really consider, is Patricia Meunier-Lebouc, the former major winner who is now a golf coach and coached Team France at The Spirit International in 2013. She has a very similar attitude to Neumann, which is a calming presence and a "stay focused" attitude, which can be perfect to offset Inkster's git and fire.
From an American perspective, the Inkster announcement couldn't have come at a better time, with the United States being lousy in almost every Cup event we've played in the past two years (Solheim, Ryder, Curtis, though we have won the Walker and Presidents in 2013). A lot of golf bloggers are comparing Inkster to US Ryder Cup Captain Tom Watson. If Team USA wins the Ryder Cup, then perhaps the sky is the limit the Captain Inkster.
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