Gainesville (United States) (AFP) – An inquiry will be made into why thousands of Solheim Cup fans were left waiting for hours on Friday in shuttle bus lines, LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan said on Saturday. Too few buses and more fans than expected left parking lots crowded, causing some fans to head home Friday. School buses were among the vehicles brought in to avoid a repeat of the opening-day disaster.
Samaan called it “an LPGA issue” and said it was a miscalculation rather than being cheap about spending. “It wasn’t trying to cut costs. It was trying to do what was going to work for the tournament,” Samaan said. “I don’t want to get into exactly who, the details of responsibility. At the end of the day, I’m the leader of the organization and I have to own it.”
The transport blunder gave one of women’s golf’s premier events a black eye before it even began. “It was disappointing. We’re not happy with what happened,” Samaan said. “I don’t think it’s going to be long-term damages to us. We have to make sure our fans know how much we care about them and how much we whiffed.” The LPGA, Samaan said, will conduct an inquiry into what went wrong. “I think it’s our responsibility to diagnose where the problems occurred, why they occurred, and to dig in,” she said. “All you can do in life is make sure you’re fixing it and getting better and making sure it never happens again.”
The LPGA sent an apology message to ticket buyers and offered two free tickets to anyone impacted. Record crowds above 130,000 for the week didn’t result in record transport measures. “There weren’t enough buses,” Samaan said. “We had additional buses coming on, but they weren’t at the right time. There was more traffic than we anticipated in the morning. The staging and the loading out there wasn’t sufficient or efficient. We just didn’t have enough manpower out there.”
Samaan was also unhappy with the lack of filled stands at the usually raucous first tee, saying, “I think there were more fans waiting at the staging area.” On Saturday, there were more buses and they ran earlier with the course opening sooner. Volunteers were moved to a new lot. “We’re not patting ourselves on the back. This is what it should have looked like yesterday,” Samaan said. “We own it. There were miscalculations and the planning was not sufficient.”
Samaan said she had no idea how many buses were used Friday or added for Saturday. “Every day you have to earn the trust of your fans,” she said. “We’re going to just keep working on it. That’s all we can do.”
© 2024 AFP
