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The Solheim Cup is regarded as the biggest golfing event in Ladies professional golf. However, there was a time when this event didn't even exist on the schedule calendar. Women's golf has been around for many years now, comparatively, the Solheim Cup is more recent and was first played in 1990.
However, the idea for a female Ryder Cup-like event had been around for many years. But, the people concerned didn't have the financial backing or the intellectual planning required to start a competiton on such a massive scale.
Interestingly, leaders from the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour got together in the late 80s to devise a plan for the Cup. It remained an idea for many years until Karlsten and Louise Solheim decided to jump in at the opportunity.
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Karlsten and Louise Solheim were strong advocates of women's golf and were elated at the opportunity to start a Ryder Cup-like event for women. Soon, the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour received the required financial backing from the Solheims resulting in the inaugral Solheim Cup in 1990 at Florida. Since then, the event has taken place every alternate year.
PING played an important role to lay the foundation of the Solheim Cup
The Solheim Cup was made possible due to collaboration between people from various ventures. PING is one of the oldest golf equipment companies, which was owned by affluent businessmen Karlsten and Louise Solheim.
“Bill Blue (commisioner of the LPGA Tour) asked for a meeting with Karsten and Louise.”
PING historian Rob Griffin added via MyGolfSpy:
“Louise was concerned about the meeting. She didn’t know what it was about and was worried the LPGA was going to ban the Eye 2 clubs just like the PGA TOUR had.”
PING was a major supporter of the women's game and even started the Karsten PING Open in Pheonix with a prize purse of $70,000. This was the second-largest prize pool in the LPGA Tour at that time.
Subsequently, the LPGA Tour and PING owners Karlsten and Louise Solheim signed an agreement which made sure that PING would sponsor the first 10 events of the Solheim Cup. This was a 20-year commitment from them and the rest was history.
