Angela Stanford, who won a major at 40, selected to captain 2026 U.S. Solheim Cup team
When the LPGA communications team asked Angela Stanford whether she could meet with the media on March 19 to discuss her Solheim Cup captaincy, she politely asked to reschedule. The day had already been reserved for good friend and fellow touring pro Kim Kaufman, who was undergoing her final round of chemotherapy back home in Texas.
Stanford has been on a mission to help 33-year-old Kaufman keep her hair by helping with an ice cap regimen that restricts blood flow and chemo treatment to the hair follicle cells. They'd get dry ice in the morning and then put the first cap on an hour before chemo, changing the cap every 25 minutes throughout the session and then for four additional hours afterward. The caps are kept anywhere from minus 32 degrees to minus 40 degrees.
Advertisement
Stanford wasn't going to miss cap duty.
For those wondering what kind of captain Stanford will be, that anecdote paints an accurate picture.
'I'm a protector by nature,' said Stanford, who steps into the role after serving as an assistant caption in the past three Solheim Cups, first to Pat Hurst and then Stacy Lewis.
Ally Ewing and Jennifer Kupcho of The United States team (standing) ride with Angela Stanford down the 18th fairway in the singles matches on the final day of the 2024 Solheim Cup at The Robert Trent Jones Golf Club on September 15, 2024 in Gainesville, Virginia.
In those experiences, Stanford learned that she needed to be 'all in' as Solheim Cup captain, and, in recent years, Stanford hasn't been in a position to do that. Her beloved mother Nan died of cancer three years ago, and it took some time to get back to a good place both emotionally and physically.
Advertisement
Last year, she retired from full-time golf on the LPGA after 23 seasons. The 47-year-old won seven times on tour, including the Evian Championship at age 40, and competed in 98 consecutive major championships from 2002 to 2024, a streak that's second only to Jack Nicklaus in major championship golf.
A six-time Solheim Cup player, the proud Texan earned the winning point for Team USA in 2015 when she defeated Suzann Pettersen, who was embroiled in controversy, 2-and-1 in Sunday singles.
Lewis praised Stanford's never-give-up mentality as a player, and said she was most helpful in her role as assistant when it came time to make the captain's picks.
'She was there to help me as a sounding board,' said Lewis, 'and push me in the right way.'
Advertisement
While Stanford served as a stats guru for Lewis, she won't be quite as tied to the numbers as she leads a team of 12 Americans Sept. 11-13, 2026, at Bernardus Golf in the Netherlands.
'I grew up in an era that stats weren't really that important,' said Stanford, 'so my gut and my instincts, you know, those things matter to me. If I have a gut feeling about something, that number better be pretty good to talk me out of it.'
Growing up, Stanford loved to play basketball in away gyms, and she relishes the idea of winning overseas, having been part of two of the three American teams that have done it in the past. The Americans hadn't won overseas since 1996 when Stanford played for Betsy King in 2007, and she appreciated the methodical, serious approach King took to the role.
That being said, Stanford hopes her team gets to see her fun side.
Angela Stanford a vice captain of The United States team walks with United States team members Cheyenne Knight (C) and Ally Ewing (R) prior to the The Solheim Cup at Finca Cortesin Golf Club on September 21, 2023 in Casares, Spain.
For the Europeans, 37-year-old Swede Anna Nordqvist will lead the home team in the Netherlands, and it isn't lost on Stanford what the two captains have in common.
Advertisement
As Stanford grieved the loss of her mother, Nordqvist grieved the loss first of her marriage, followed by the sudden death of her ex-husband, Kevin McAlpine, at age 39.
'I find that kind of fascinating that you have two people that are captains that have walked a path of grief that they didn't want, they didn't ask for, some of the hardest stuff they've ever had to go through,' said Stanford.
'And so I think it at some point, for me, it's going to be pretty special to get to stand beside her and know that, you know, she's done everything she can as a human being just to put one foot in front of the other. She's done the work, and I've done the work, and now we get to be a part of spearheading an event that will hopefully help women's golf grow.'
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Angela Stanford selected to captain 2026 U.S. Solheim Cup team
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox Sports
2 hours ago
- Fox Sports
A reality check for the USMNT: Why Poch's plan backfired in an ugly loss
If Mauricio Pochettino wanted to learn more about the depth of the U.S. men's national team player pool, he sure got a lesson on Tuesday night. The Argentine coach's young and experimental USMNT lineup was roundly embarrassed 4-0 by Switzerland in a friendly match in Nashville, in a game that served as the Americans' final dress rehearsal for the Concacaf Gold Cup, which Pochettino's squad opens on Sunday against Trinidad and Tobago (kickoff at 6 p.m. ET on FOX). The big takeaway? If this team is going to make any noise at all at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on home soil a year from now, the USMNT regulars can't get back soon enough. For reasons too various to fully recap here, Pochettino is without most of what most would consider his strongest possible lineup this summer. Christian Pulisic isn't there. Neither are Folarin Balogun, Sergino Dest, Weston, McKennie, Yunus Musah, Ricardo Pepi, Gio Reyna, Antonee Robinson, Joe Scally, Tanner Tessmann or Tim Weah. Heart and soul midfielder Tyler Adams, the USMNT's captain at the 2022 World Cup, sat out Tuesday's debacle because of a foot injury that may yet rule him out of the Gold Cup. Take a dozen of the most seasoned players out of any national team, and the results might not be pretty. Then there's the fact that Pochettino came into this two-exhibition set — the U.S. lost 2-1 to Türkiye in Connecticut last Saturday — planning to use almost all the 26 players on his roster. The plan backfired, with the U.S. conceding all four goals during a 23-minute span midway through the first half. "It's my responsibility, the decision of the choice of the starting 11," Pochettino said afterward. "It went in the wrong direction from the beginning. We were never again in the game against a very good team like Switzerland, with experienced players, a team that is playing really well. [So] my first thought is not to blame the players, it's to blame ourselves. "That was my decision and that decision didn't work." Pochettino started 20 different players over the two contests, and he has now fielded 65 players in all since replacing Gregg Berhalter at the U.S. helm last September. "With more than 60 players, it's difficult to have the continuity or balance," Pochettino said. "We changed a lot, [both] the starting 11 and the roster." Just two players started both games, and Pochettino left the experienced likes of Chris Richards and Tim Ream on the bench in Music City, though Ream was among a number of subs who came on in the second half and helped shut down the Swiss over the final 45 minutes. But the young starters were thoroughly outclassed by a Swiss XI that included European standouts like Manchester City center back Manuel Akanji, Bayer Leverkusen midfielder Granit Xhaka and Borussia Dortmund keeper Gregor Kobel. Fullbacks Max Arfsten and Nathan Harriel were badly exposed defensively. It was the fourth consecutive loss for Pochettino's team, all of them at home. Coming on the heels of the regulars' last-place finish at March's Concacaf Nations League finals, the hope was that a few of the understudies would run with the rare opportunity to log big minutes in a tournament setting. Some have: Diego Luna continues to impress. Johnny Cardoso and Malik Tillman could still have a big Gold Cup. So too could the U.S. It just doesn't seem likely. Last year's 5-1 drubbing by Colombia foreshadowed a historic Copa América failure, as the Americans became the first host nation not to advance from group play in the 108-year history of that competition. Pochettino will no doubt field his strongest possible lineup in the Gold Cup. The U.S. will still be severely shorthanded. That doesn't bode well for their chances against competitive foes who'll be mostly intact. Two years ago, Panama eliminated a third-string USMNT in the Gold Cup semis. Three of those games were in the 2007 Copa América in Venezuela, where the Americans sent a "C" squad and paid a steep price, finishing last in their group with a negative-6 goal differential. Sure, a team of U.S. reserves famously shocked Mexico's regulars in the 2021 Gold Cup final. But that hasn't been the norm historically. It isn't even the ultimate goal. "After working one month together, some players that maybe you don't think have the possibility to be on the roster at the World Cup, could be," Pochettino said. "Maybe someone can surprise us. It's about opportunity. But you take a risk when you compete with this level of opponent." This roster is still capable of showing well at the Gold Cup, though. If they can come together as a team, find a lineup that clicks and catch lightning in a bottle, they remain capable of making a deep run. However the results go the rest of this summer, it's clear that Pochettino will need every possible weapon at his disposal a year from now to make the World Cup campaign a success. "The boys are so motivated to play in the Gold Cup," Pochettino said. "The feeling after Türkiye was good. We made nine changes and the combinations didn't work. That's it. "We can lose [this game], but we can win the Gold Cup and arrive at the World Cup and do well." We'll see. Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports who has covered United States men's and women's national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ ByDougMcIntyre . recommended Get more from Gold Cup Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
Christian Roots of the NBA—From Naismith to This Year's 79th NBA Finals
Faith and sports go hand in hand. Quarterbacks quote Bible verses in interviews, and today's top NBA players, from Golden State Warrior star Stephen Curry (verses of scripture adorn his sneakers) to Indiana Pacers sensation Tyrese Halliburton (he cites church as "a big part of my success and my sanity"), count themselves among the 62 percent of Americans who call ourselves Christians. As sports fans nationwide watch the drama of the 79thth NBA Finals unfold, it's worth telling the story of basketball's Christian roots. Indeed, Christianity was the driving force behind the game's origin story. "I want to take you back to the first game of basketball in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1891," Paul Putz, author of The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports, told Our American Stories. "Eighteen grown men, most in their mid-20s, walked into the gym at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School, where they were students. There were two peach baskets tacked to banisters on opposite sides of the gym, 10 feet off the ground. There was a soccer ball, too, and 13 rules for a new game their instructor, James Naismith, explained to them." Putz described that first game: "They divided into two teams of nine: No dribbling, no jump shots, no dunking. Instead, they passed the soccer ball back and forth, trying to keep it away from their opponents while angling for a chance to throw it into the basket." The inventor of basketball, Dr. James Naismith, stands in a field carrying a ball and a basket. The inventor of basketball, Dr. James Naismith, stands in a field carrying a ball and a basket. There was no template for what a shot might look like, Putz explained. As the players positioned the ball at the top of their heads to toss it toward the basket, a defender would swoop in and grab it away. "If you've ever tried to coach second-graders, it was probably a scene like that—except with big players and beards," Putz said. When the game ended, just one person made a shot. The final score: 1 to 0. To the students—and Naismith—it was a success. The students loved the challenge and possibilities of the game. Naismith loved those things, too. But he loved what the game represented, and why he was at the YMCA Training School in the first place. On his application, he was asked to describe the role for which he was training, and wrote: "To win men for the Master through the gym." Naismith's idea was simple but revolutionary: He believed sports could shape Christian character in ways mere study could not. So who was this man who created one of America's great homegrown sports? "He grew up in rural Canada," Putz said. "His parents died of illness when he was 9, and his uncle, a deeply religious man, took him in. When Naismith was 15, he dropped out of school, working as a lumberjack, but returned to high school at the age of 20 and entered college with the goal of becoming a minister." Most Christians in Naismith's day viewed sports as, at best, a distraction; others saw sports as a tool of the devil. "But Naismith was coming of age during the rise of a new movement called 'Muscular Christianity,'" Putz said. "It pushed back against the dualism that separated the spiritual and physical," Putz explained. "The body itself had sacred value, they believed, and human beings should be understood holistically—mind, body and soul intertwined." For Naismith, this idea came home in an epiphany playing football as a seminary student. During a game, a teammate lost his temper and let out a stream of curse words. During a break, he turned to Naismith and said sheepishly, "I beg your pardon, I forgot you were there." Naismith never spoke out against profanity, but his teammate felt compelled to apologize because, in Naismith's words, "I played the game with all my might yet held myself under control." His teammate was responding to Naismith's character on and off the field. Soon after that encounter, Naismith heard about the YMCA Training School in Springfield, a new college dedicated to connecting physical activity and Christian formation. And away he went to America to invent the game we know and love. "Naismith believed strongly in individual expression, and wanted basketball players to have space to create," Putz explained. "He celebrated inventive moves—like the dribble and the hook shot—and expressed awe as players pushed the limits of what was possible." But Naismith also understood that with freedom came constraints. "Basketball is personal combat without personal contact," Naismith would often say. Players can move anywhere at any time, and get close to their opponents, but can't overpower them physically, Putz explained. The only way to make the game work is consistently applying the rules. Which is why Naismith's favorite role wasn't player or coach but referee. Naismith would become a pioneer on more than one front. In the 1930s, while a professor at the University of Kansas, a young African American student named John McLendon enrolled, Putz explained. "He wanted to join the basketball team—but Kansas didn't allow Black players." Naismith took the young man under his wing, and McLendon would later become one of the most important basketball coaches of the 20th century. Basketball was influenced by Americans of all stripes. "In 1892, Senda Berenson, a Jewish instructor at a women's college, saw basketball as a rare opportunity for women to participate in sports," Putz said. "She adapted the rules and helped make it the most important women's team sport of the 20th century." The Jewish community embraced the game early, producing many of its first stars and innovators. So did Catholics and Latter-day Saints. Basketball also crossed racial and ethnic lines. Though the YMCA was segregated, Black Americans created their own spaces—often through churches—and built thriving basketball cultures, especially in cities like New York and Washington, D.C. It didn't take long for Naismith's creation to became a pluralistic and collaborative force—a gift to the world, developed and shaped by many hands, Putz added. "One of my favorite Naismith stories comes from the 1920s," Putz concluded. "He dropped by a small-college gym in Iowa, and a pickup game was about to begin. The players needed a referee and spotted the old man in the bleachers. One ran over to ask if he'd officiate—but before Naismith could respond, another player interrupted: 'That old man? He doesn't know anything about basketball.' The players walked off to find someone else. Naismith just smiled." The fact is, basketball would not be the game we know and love today if it hadn't been for Naismith's Christian vision. "I'm sure," Naismith wrote near the end of his life, "that no man can derive more pleasure from money or power than I do from seeing a pair of basketball goals in some out of the way place—deep in the Wisconsin woods an old barrel hoop nailed to a tree, or a weather-beaten shed on the Mexican border with a rusty iron hoop nailed to one end." Naismith's story is worth celebrating as we watch the Thunder and Pacers battle for the 79th NBA title.
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Countdown to 2026 World Cup has begun, and pressure is on U.S. team to improve
Soccer is making big headlines in the United States this week with the kickoff of the Club World Cup at Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday and celebrations in 11 cities across the country on Wednesday commemorating one year to go to the 2026 World Cup. All 16 World Cup host cities (11 in the United States, three in Mexico and two in Canada) unveiled countdown clocks as part of the festivities. The Miami clock was revealed at the Perez Art Museum (PAMM) in downtown in a ceremony that included city and county officials, the Miami World Cup host committee, and singer Marc Anthony. The clocks will count down to the stroke of midnight on June 11, 2026, when the tournament opens in Mexico City. The first 13 of 48 teams have already qualified, including co-hosts Canada, Mexico and the USA, who get automatic entry. The way things are going for Team USA of late, coach Mauricio Pochettino and the U.S. Soccer Federation are surely grateful for the automatic bid. The U.S. team lost 4-0 to Switzerland in a friendly in Nashville on Tuesday night, with all four goals conceded in the first half. It was the fourth loss in a row for Team USA. Among the headlines following the game: USMNT humiliated by Switzerland 4-0. USMNT thrashed 4-0 by Switzerland in final Gold Cup tune up. First half debacle dooms hapless USMNT in 4-0 friendly loss to Switzerland. Former U.S. national team stars Alexi Lalas and Landon Donovan, now Fox Sports commentators and podcasters, have not minced words in their analysis of Team USA, questioning the heart, work ethic and commitment of some players. Pochettino, an Argentine who was hired last Fall from Tottenham Hotspurs to lead the American squad, has tried to instill more passion and pride in the national badge. 'We're going through a period right now where this team is being looked at in a critical sense, and I think fairly so,' Lalas said on a conference call marking the year to go to the World Cup. 'I think more concerning is a possible apathy that has crept in towards this team. And I never thought if you would ask me, back in 1994, what the summer of 2025 a year away from the World Cup in 2026 would look like that this would be what I would come up with.' Both Donovan and Lalas stressed that there is pressure on the U.S. team to rise to the occasion. 'I also don't want to let this generation off the hook,' Lalas said. 'This is a generation that, over those last 30 plus years, everybody has worked to make sure that they have everything that they possibly need in terms of the opportunities and the resources that they have. 'And with that comes higher expectations, and I do think fair expectations, and so whoever ultimately is on that field come next summer, when that whistle blows, I hope that they recognize the opportunity, and I hope that they recognize the responsibility to further the game.' Donovan said the team's highest profile Europe-based players who have been considered locks to make the World Cup squad might be replaced by hungrier, lesser-known players if they are not careful. 'When you put the U.S. jersey on, or you get invited to a camp, it is a massive responsibility,' Donovan said, adding that he was moved by seeing 30,000 U.S. military members singing the Star Spangled Banner at a 2006 game in Germany. 'That's the level of dedication I think fans want to see.' The last time the United States hosted a men's World Cup was 1994. Lalas said the world will see next year how much soccer progress has been made in this country. 'I think the world is going to be pleasantly surprised by how far we have come in it's still a relatively short period of time, but we still have a ways to go,' Lalas said. 'A World Cup is, for lack of a better word, this circus that comes to town with a huge tent. That tent has gotten bigger, and we want to make sure that we are as welcoming and accommodating as possible, because we recognize that a lot of people are going to come in and maybe again, as far as we've come, they're going to be some people that taste test, and we hope that they get a little taste of it, and they want more, because the circus will leave town. The legacy that it leaves, that's what's important.' Other teams who have punched their tickets to the World Cup are defending champion Argentina, first-time qualifiers Jordan and Uzbekistan, as well as Australia, Brazil, Ecuador, IR Iran, Japan, Korea Republic and New Zealand. The remaining 35 teams will be confirmed by March 2026, when all the regional qualifying tournaments have concluded. World Cup tickets will go on sale to the public in the coming months. Select ticket-inclusive hospitality packages are already available. Additional hospitality packages, including for matches in Canada and Mexico, are set to go on sale in July. Fans can learn more at Messi returns to Inter Miami Lionel Messi raced back to the Inter Miami training facility Wednesday morning to prepare for the Club World Cup following Argentina's 1-1 tie with Colombia Tuesday night in World Cup qualifying. Inter Miami plays Egyptian power Al Ahly in the opening game Saturday night at Hard Rock Stadium. 'I don't think any other player's doing something like that,' said Inter Miami defender Ian Fray. 'They just played [Tuesday night] at 8 o'clock and he was already back and came straight from the airport in his full Argentina kit. You just look at that and say, `This guy's ready.' It just shows you he's taking really seriously, which you'd expect. It elavates all of our levels by being there.'
