The 29th Hootie & the Blowfish Monday After the Masters Celebrity Pro-Am on Monday served as a reunion for three members of the 2009 U.S. Solheim Cup Team.
Angela Stanford, Brittany Lincicome and Kristy McPherson of Conway participated in tournament festivities over the weekend and the golf tournament on Monday at Barefoot Resort’s Dye Club.
Their presence also resulted in some LPGA Tour and Solheim Cup news.
Though an official release isn’t expected from the LPGA until Tuesday, Stanford let it be known during a gala Sunday night at the House of Blues that McPherson is one of her assistant captains for the 2026 matches.
The 2026 Solheim Cup will be played at Bernardus Golf in Cromvoirt, Netherlands, and Stanford, a seven-time LPGA Tour winner and six-time U.S. Solheim Cup Team member, was named the U.S. team captain last month.
“I was told it was going to be announced Tuesday. So I was shocked,” McPherson said. “They put me on stage. I’m like, ‘I would have dressed cuter. I would have done my hair. I would have done something but I didn’t know I was going on stage.’ They just called me [up] out of the blue and she announced it last night.
“She caught me off-guard but it’s really cool to get it announced in South Carolina with all my peeps here.”
A long time coming
McPherson’s pick as Stanford’s assistant captain is more than a decade in the making.
The two have been friends since McPherson’s first days on the LPGA beginning in 2007, and they often traveled together on tour.
Being a Solheim Cup team captain has been a high priority in Stanford’s career, and when she won a major title at the 2018 Evian Championship, it all but cinched her selection one day.
“She told me many years ago . . . I’ve got to win a major championship so I can be captain and you can be my assistant captain,” McPherson said, “and I said, ‘I’m your biggest fan. Go win a major.’ And she did.
“You won’t find anyone with more heart and passion than her, who bleeds red, white and blue. The Solheim Cup is always the biggest event she looks forward to and her ultimate goal was to be captain one day.”
A full-time member of the LPGA Tour for nine years from 2007-15, McPherson has 17 career top-10 finishes, 43 top-25s and reached a top 15 world ranking despite playing through juvenile rheumatoid arthritis that left her bedridden for nearly a year at the ages of 11 and 12.
“Everything she has had to go through physically, every time she came to the course she always competed and you never knew she was hurting,” Stanford said. “I just have always been impressed by her attitude. She never made excuses and that’s kind of the mentality we need over there. No excuses, we’re going to show up and do our best no matter what. I think Kristy is just that way and I think the players will enjoy being around her.”
Stanford still has two assistant captains to name in the coming months.
“It’s going to be a great year and a half to prepare and that week is going to be amazing,” McPherson said. “. . . We’re both so competitive I feel we’re going to be a good team and we’ve got some other girls that are going to be announced soon that are going to be good to be assistant captains.”
Catching up with Kristy
McPherson is currently working as a caddie and giving some lessons at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, on the west coast of Florida near Clearwater, where she has made good contacts with successful and influential members, and she has been entertaining some job offers.
She said a handful of colleges reached out to see if she was interested in coaching positions, and said she has two upcoming interviews that are in the golf industry.
“I’ve had probably five or six college coaching opportunities that didn’t seem right, not the right place to move to if I’m going to get into that,” McPherson said. “I took a job with a wealth management firm and that didn’t seem right. I need to be on the golf course and I’ve got a couple interviews and couple opportunities coming up. I’m just trying to figure out what I’ll do when I grow up and I don’t want to grow up, so I don’t know. The right opportunity hasn’t come yet.”
McPherson still has some lifetime status on the LPGA Tour based on career money – she has won $2.3 million – and expects to get into five or six events this season, as she has in recent years.
“But I don’t want to go play if I can’t compete,” she said. “It’s not fun just to go tee it up just to go tee it up. We’ll see if I get time to work on it and see if I go play anymore or not.”
She turns 44 on May 28, and at 45 she’ll be eligible to compete on the Legends of the LPGA tour, which is the female equivalent of PGA Tour Champions and has six events scheduled this year.
“Hopefully we get more events and it turns more into a Champions Tour,” said McPherson, who played on the boys team at Conway High before becoming a three-time All-American and seven-time winner at the University of South Carolina. “I’m a little over a year away from that so I’ll probably grind a little bit. Hopefully I’ll play more and get my game ready to go there.”
She will spend a lot of time over the next 15 months or so scouting American players on the LPGA Tour for possible selection to face a team of the top European women.
“It’s going to be so much fun,” McPherson said. “It’s going to be a year and a half to prepare and we get to go see the girls play and try to pick the perfect team and get them ready to play.”
McPherson suggested to Lincicome a couple weeks ago that she come play in the Hootie MAM, and Lincicome contacted tournament director Paul Graham, who said he had a spot for her.
Lincicome, 39, a long hitter with the nickname ‘Bam Bam,’ has won eight LPGA Tour tournaments, including two majors, and has played in six Solheim Cups.
“She’s always talked about this event and it has just never worked out with us going to Hawaii [for an event] or wherever our schedules were,” Lincicome said. “It’s been great. I drove up with her early, been hanging out with her family and it has just been a blast already.”
Star-studded event
The Solheim Cup members were among a plethora of celebrities and pro golfers in the tournament Monday.
Late additions to the tournament included Hall of Fame NFL cornerback Darrell Green, World Series-winning outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr., and college basketball analyst and former player Debbie Antonelli.
Other participants included two-time Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip; three-time national champion college football coach Urban Meyer; actor Kevin Sorbo; former NFL players Steve Smith, Sterling Sharpe, Corey Miller and Patrick DiMarco; former Major League Baseball player Tony Womack; ESPN host Jay Harris; meteorologist Jim Cantore; actress Debbe Dunning; auto racing analyst Rutledge Wood; and comedians/actors Jackie Flynn and Gary Valentine.
Musicians playing Monday included Ryan Cabrera, Javier Colon, Andrew Copeland of Sister Hazel, Shawn Drover of Megadeth, Jillian Cardarelli, Larry Fleet, Patrick Davis, Taylor Hicks, Edwin McCain, and the four members of Hootie & The Blowfish.
Current or former PGA Tour members who participated included Boo Weekley, Chris DiMarco, Woody Austin, DJ Trahan, Billy Kratzert, Ted Potter Jr., Billy Hurley, Ken Duke, Tommy Gainey, Charlie Rymer, Scott Brown, Jason Bohn, Brian Davis, Brendan DeJonge, Robert Gamez, Mike Hulbert, Arjun Atwal, Cameron Percy and Greg Owen.
The MAM raises money for junior golf and education charities and initiatives in South Carolina through the Hootie & the Blowfish Foundation.
The event has raised nearly $10 million in its 28 previous years and has established an endowment, according to organizers.
