Danielle Kang Dealing With Lost Golf Bag Travel Disaster Ahead of 2023 Solheim Cup
The 2023 Solheim Cup is just three days away, and 13 of Danielle Kang’s 14 golf clubs are missing in transit. Only Kang’s putter made it with her to Andalucia, Spain, and that’s because she packs the prototype model separately—in a hot pink rifle case.
“I do travel with my putter separately, yes, in a rifle case,” the U.S. team member explained. “My putter is a different model, so we don’t have the bending machine for it, and it bends a lot during travel. So I put it in a separate case ... my clubs do get bent on the plane and yes, that matters, to all the people wondering.”
The rest of Kang’s set is nowhere to be found. The four-time U.S. Solheim Cup team member took to X (formerly Twitter) on Monday night to attempt to get her airline’s attention. Apparently Kang’s clubs missed every possible flight out of Amsterdam, where the bag’s location was last documented.
U.S. captain Stacy Lewis even chimed in on social media to help out her team member, writing “@Delta @KLM would love some help locating a set of golf clubs...kind of a big tournament going on this week!!!”
Kang explained her latest luggage saga during a press conference at Finca Cortesin on Wednesday.
“It's been an adventure,” Kang said. “If it wasn't a dramatic entrance, it wouldn't be my life, so it's O.K. It's all good. My captain, Stacy, has been absolutely incredible. The entire U.S. team has been helping me. Everyone's on top of it. They have been tracking my bag to Vegas to Amsterdam. My sponsor Titleist is making up a second set. That's flying in temporarily tonight, and then Ping has made me a temporary set today that I got to play with, so we can at least test out the golf course. It is what it is. You just kind of roll with the punches. It's life, it's golf, you know, it's O.K.”
Luckily Kang is the No. 33 player in the world and teeing it up in one of the game’s most prestigious competitions this week, so equipment companies—including Ping, which isn’t even a direct partner of hers—immediately swooped in with some spare sticks in the meantime.
Kang travels with her putter in a hot pink rifle case to prevent the custom model from accidentally bending in transit. The Scotty Cameron putter is the only club of Kang’s that made it to Spain.
Danielle Kang/Instagram
Unfortunately, Kang is no stranger to traveling with her golf clubs and not receiving them on time. British Airways momentarily lost her precious cargo earlier this summer ahead of the AIG Women’s Open.
“Thankfully the putter didn’t get lost,” Kang said. “The other 13 are coming. We have faith.”