[PHOTO: Michael Reaves]
LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan met with the media on Saturday, US time, to address the shuttle transportation problems from Friday that had more fans in line to get to the Solheim Cup than on the first tee – historically one of the best experiences the sport has to offer.
“Our goal of this week, we’ve been working really hard to bring in more fans to the sport, bring in more fans to the LPGA,” Marcoux Samaan said. “We’ve worked very hard to do that and to market this event, which is a marquee event, it was extremely disappointing that we had any fan that didn’t have the perfect experience that we expect.”
LPGA leadership noticed the problem when they saw the mostly empty grandstands around Robert Trent Jones Golf Club’s first tee on Friday morning. They quickly understood that the problem was the lack of shuttles from the carpark. Marcoux Samaan didn’t clarify how many vehicles the tour had driving fans from the pick-up spot on Friday, explaining that it was complicated, but added that the tour got three to four times more shuttles running the rest of the morning.
“At the end of the day, I’m the leader of the organisation and I have to own it,” Marcoux Samaan said.
The LPGA’s lack of public messaging outside of the statement it put out at 9:30am on Friday was due to tour leadership going into triage mode. They focused on meeting with fans on the ground to improve the experience. The commissioner got directly involved with driving fans to the course, turning around to return a phone to a woman who left it behind in her car.
It took the tour 12 hours to release an apology statement, sending it to fans late on Friday giving them two free tickets useable for the rest of the weekend. When asked about the fans who travelled to this event and had already purchased the $US110 one-day competition tickets, Marcoux Samaan indicated that it was too complicated to try to send refunds. The commissioner said she saw the fans who took to social media to share that they weren’t coming back.
“We’re not happy with what happened,” Marcoux Samaan said. “I don’t think it’s going to be long-term damage to us. We have to make sure our fans know how much we care about them and how much we ‘whiffed’.”
Marcoux Samaan plans an inquiry into how this could have happened but focused more on touting the quality of the fan experience for those who were on the grounds. The opening afternoon sessions had plenty of energising fanfare. The first tee was filled on Saturday morning as fans buzzed while lining the opening hole’s fairway, a needed recovery after an opening day headlined by transportation problems.
“This morning was obviously a lot better,” Marcoux Samaan said. “We’re not up here patting ourselves on the back. I think that’s the way it should have been yesterday.”
