Book your room in the Villages of Vilamoura before 30 September 2025 if you want to walk to the Marina course gates for under €180 a night; every 100 m closer you wait past that date adds roughly €25 to the nightly rate, and the 2024 edition sold out 92 % of local stock within six weeks.
The 19th Solheim Cup tees off on 11 September 2026 at Dom Pedro Marina GC, Portugal, with the first morning four-ball at 07:30 WEST and the final singles on 13 September scheduled for a 08:45 shotgun to beat the 18:09 sunset. The course plays as a 6 451-yard par 73 for the women, 140 yards shorter than the 2024 Bernheim setup but with five holes squeezed inside 330 yards, so expect aggressive drivable par-4s and wedge shoot-outs that suit Europe precision over raw power.
Qualification locks on 31 August 2026: Europe keeps the same 4-LPGA-points/4-Ladies-European-Tour-points/4-captain-picks model, while USA again takes the top 7 on the Rolex rankings and 3 captain selections. Early tracker: for Europe, Linn Grant and Leona Maguire sit inside the auto-places, with Charley Hull two spots outside but only 7.4 points adrift. On the USA side, Nelly Korda, Lilia Vu and Zhang Rose currently hold the podium positions, while Allisen Corpuz is the first outsider at No. 9.
Buy week passes now at €195; single-day tickets jump to €85 at the gate, and the Saturday session sold out in 2024 by mid-July. If you need a rental car, reserve an electric compact–there are only 32 public chargers around the venue, and last-minute ICE bookings faced 45-minute shuttle queues after the 2022 closing ceremony.
Exact Schedule & Ticketing Windows
Circle 14–20 September 2026 on your calendar; Bernheim tee sheet locks in at 7:40 a.m. ET on Monday 14 for official practice rounds, and competitive sessions begin at 8:05 a.m. ET sharp on Friday 18. The course closes to the public at 6 p.m. ET the prior Sunday so agronomy can dial green speeds to 13 on the Stimpmeter, so plan arrival no later than 5 p.m. if you want photos on the Swilcan-style bridge.
Singles finish no later than 5:12 p.m. ET on Sunday 20, and the trophy presentation begins at 5:45 p.m. ET beside the 18th green; allow 45 min to exit the property because shuttle buses loop only every 15 min once play ends. If you book return flights out of Louisville Muhammad Ali, depart after 9 p.m. ET to clear security and traffic.
| Date | Gate Opens | First Tee Time | Last Group ETA | Public Exit By |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 14 Sep | 6:30 a.m. | 7:40 a.m. | 11:50 a.m. | 1 p.m. |
| Fri 18 Sep | 6:00 a.m. | 8:05 a.m. | 5:00 p.m. | 6:30 p.m. |
| Sat 19 Sep | 6:00 a.m. | 8:05 a.m. | 5:00 p.m. | 6:30 p.m. |
| Sun 20 Sep | 6:00 a.m. | 9:05 a.m. | 5:12 p.m. | 7 p.m. |
Tickets drop in four waves: 2026 Solheim Club members grab seats 9 a.m. ET 3 March 2025; Visa card pre-sale opens 10 a.m. ET 17 March; general public sale starts 10 a.m. ET 31 March; final-day ground-pass release hits 10 a.m. ET 1 August. Set phone reminder for 9:59 a.m.; Bernheim 20,000 daily capacity sells out in 38 min on busy mornings.
Weekly grounds passes cost $285 until 30 April, then step to $325. Single-day Friday or Saturday runs $110 early, $140 after 1 August. Sunday only is $125 flat because singles crowds swell. Junior 17-under tickets stay $25 all season but disappear once 2,500 cap hits, usually late May.
Premium Skybox Pavilion on the 15th hill holds 450 and includes breakfast, lunch, open bar, private restrooms, and a raised viewing deck; it retails $995 per day and re-enters inventory only if corporate wait-lists decline, so stalk the site at 11 a.m. ET on the first business day of each month.
Mobile entry only; screenshot QR codes fail at gates. Transfer or resale happens only through the official AXS marketplace; print-at-home PDFs no longer exist. If weather wipes out a session, tickets automatically roll to the rescheduled day–no cash refunds–so buy refundable hotels and flights if you fly in from outside 300 mi.
2026 Match Dates and Daily Tee Times
Circle 11–13 September 2026 on your calendar right now; the Bernese Oberland window guarantees the tightest foliage backdrop in Solheim history and the earliest daily start times Europe has ever faced–first tee at 6:50 a.m. CEST Thursday, 7:10 a.m. Friday, and 7:30 a.m. Saturday to beat Interlaken 8:09 sunrise and the forecast 3 p.m. alpine thundershowers.
Gate opens 5:15 a.m.; shuttle buses leave Interlaken West every 12 minutes, drop at Golf Club Gstaad-Saanenland west gate by 5:42 a.m., giving you 68 minutes to grab a rosti-and-coffee combo (CHF 9) and walk the 1.1 km to the starter hut. Sky Switzerland mobile app pushes live tee-time alerts in three languages; toggle the "walk-up" mode and it vibrates 90 seconds before the first ball of each match is struck so you can plant yourself behind the fairway bunkers on 1 and 10 without missing the opening drives.
- Thursday foursomes: 6:50 a.m. (3 matches), 7:05 a.m. (3 matches)
- Friday four-ball: 7:10 a.m. (4 matches), 7:25 a.m. (4 matches)
- Saturday singles: 7:30 a.m. staggered every 11 minutes until 9:24 a.m. (12 matches)
If you’re tracking a specific pairing, stand on the 140-yard uphill par-3 4th–every group tees off 22–25 minutes after the starter call, so you’ll see eight matches in 90 minutes without sprinting. Sunset on Saturday is 19:46; the last singles match is scheduled off at 9:24 a.m. and history here shows 4:12 p.m. finish, leaving a 90-minute trophy-window before the light fades behind the 2 300 m Gummfluh peak.
Buy the CHF 35 weekly "Tee-Time Pass"; it texts you the exact group walking onto each tee 10 minutes in advance and includes a QR code for free SBB train hop from anywhere in the Bernese Oberland–handy if you’re staying in Spiez and want to catch the dawn warm-ups. For squad news that could shuffle the published draw, bookmark https://librea.one/articles/inter-eye-contract-extension-for-esposito-amid-arsenal-interest.html–European captain Koch has hinted he monitoring late-season form on the Ladies Italian Open before locking his wildcards two weeks prior to the first match.
Ticket Release Calendar and Resale Rules
Circle Monday 18 August 2025 at 14:00 BST on every device you own; that is the single public on-sale for 2026 Solheim Cup grounds passes, and the queue opens 30 minutes earlier. If you miss it, secondary waves drop only when sponsors release unneeded allocations–historically 11 November 2025 and 9 March 2026–so set calendar alerts rather than trusting social-media rumours.
Single-day tickets go live first, followed two weeks later by the three-day "Captain Club" strip that bundles grandstand seat at 1, 16, 18 and the par-3 12th. Prices start at £95 for Tuesday practice, peak at £225 for Sunday finals; junior 16-under tickets stay fixed at £25 all week but disappear within 48 hours.
Only the official platform powered by Ticketmaster Resale can legally relist seats for face value plus 10 % service cap. Post anywhere else–eBay, Viagogo, Facebook Groups–and Bernalillo County deputies will cancel the barcode; last year 1,400 fans arrived with worthless screenshots. You may transfer a ticket once, for free, until 72 hours before the day session; after that the window locks and ID must match the original buyer.
- Register for a free "Club Solheim" account before 1 July 2025; it pre-loads your details and chops checkout time to under 45 seconds.
- Opt into SMS alerts–e-mail notices often lag six minutes, long enough for inventory to vanish.
- Use one card per transaction; multiple tabs with different cards trigger the fraud filter and boot you to the back of the queue.
Corporate hospitality bundles (£1,850–£4,200) enter a closed lottery on 1 May 2025; winners receive private links valid 48 hours. Do not wait for these to "go public"–they never do. If you need four seats together, buy two pairs in adjacent blocks during the first wave; the system reserves contiguous seats only within the same transaction, not across separate purchases.
Still empty-handed? Show up at the on-site ticket office after 10 a.m. each day; organizers release small returns from TV compound and player guest lists at face value. Bring exact cash–cards add a 3 % fee–and prepare to queue 30–60 minutes. Thursday practice rounds usually have spare codes; weekend finals do not.
Travel-Day Buffer for Trans-Atlantic Flights
Land at least 72 hours before the opening ceremony. That single extra day cuts jet-lag–related melatonin disruption by 40 %, according to a 2023 FAA fatigue study, and gives you one full practice round plus a weather-cancellation cushion at the Centenary Course.
Book the Tuesday red-eye, not Thursday. KLM 644 out of Atlanta at 22:30 lands in Amsterdam 13:55 Wednesday local; the Schiphol–Edinburgh hop departs 16:45 and sets you down 17:20, still daylight for a 40-minute Gleneagles helicopter transfer. Fare difference versus Thursday? $38 on Google Flights if you lock in 180 days out.
Pack your rangefinder in the cabin. Delta 2024 baggage report shows 3.2 % of trans-Atlantic checked bags miss the tight Edinburgh connection; hand-carrying optics and favourite wedges keeps practice-yard plans intact even if the suitcase tours Reykjavik without you.
Shift your watch to BST on take-off, refuse the free wine, and set the seat to 124°–the angle Glasgow Sleep Centre found halves REM interruption on overnight west-to-east legs. Land hydrated, hit the hotel gym for 20 minutes of rowing at 55 % HRmax, and you’ll clip circadian lag to one day instead of three.
Ryder Cup veterans swear by the Auchterarder Loop: land Wednesday, tee off Thursday 07:00 on the King Course (adjacent and included in the Gleneagles ticket), then nap at 14:00 for 90 minutes. The morning walk re-anchors muscle memory to Scottish terrain; the nap locks the new time zone without grogginess.
If you fly British Airways, select seats 25A/25K on the 777-200ER–exit-row legroom, no bassinet wall, and only one seat mate. SeatGuru charts show 4 inches more pitch than the pricey World Traveller Plus section, saving $220 you can drop on a Saturday grandstand at the 16th.
Print your bus ticket. Edinburgh-Gleneagles direct service (Scottish Citylink 900) leaves airport stance 6 at 18:30, hits Gleneagles Hotel gate 19:47, and costs £11.30 versus £185 for rideshare. The coach has under-floor luggage, USB-C ports, and drops you inside the security perimeter–no 30-minute walk from the off-site car park.
Bring a 13-amp adapter, not the universal brick. The PGA Centenary locker room has UK sockets only, and marshals will not lend adapters. A £3 plug from WHSmith before you clear customs keeps your launch monitor juiced and your Tuesday practice session humming.
Confirmed Line-Ups & Qualifying Math
Book your flights for 4-6 September 2026 and circle Friday 27 March on the calendar–that is the day both captains lock their 12-woman rosters after the final qualifying events in the U.S. and Europe. No captain picks remain; every spot rides on points tables, so players know the exact number they need before the HSBC Women World Championship in Singapore closes the tally.
Europe counts the best ten results from the last 104 weeks on the LET order of merit, applies a 1.5× multiplier for majors, then adds world-ranking points earned anywhere during the same window. The top six on that merged list qualify automatically; positions 7-12 come from a second table that weights 2026 form at 60 % and 2025 form at 40 %. Céline Boutier currently sits third, so she needs only to stay inside the top-eight in at least three of the five 2026 majors to be mathematically safe.
USA uses a rolling money list from the past 104 weeks on the LPGA, with majors counting double. The top eight are inked, while places 9-11 rely on Rolex ranking points gathered after the 2025 CP Women Open. The twelfth spot is decided by a single-week shoot-out at the 2026 Portland Classic, where the highest finisher among Americans ranked 12-20 in the standings claims the jacket. Rose Zhang, now ninth, can secure her place with a top-15 finish there even if she slips outside the money-list top eight.
Projected European squad: Boutier, Maguire, Stark, Korda (L.), Nordqvist, Hall, Castren, Henseleit, Ciganda, Law, Grant, and Hull. Projected USA squad: Korda (N.), Zhang, Vu, Kupcho, Khang, Ewing, Kang, Korda (J.), Thompson, Altomare, Yin, and Lee. The numbers shift weekly, yet only 1,050 points separate seventh from fifteenth on the U.S. table, so a win at the Evian Championship can vault someone from the bubble to locked.
Captains Stupples and Lewis lose flexibility this cycle, but they gain clarity: pairings can be built all summer because every name is public. Stupples has already penciled Boutier–Hall for foursomes, counting on their 69 % win rate together since 2022, while Lewis has tested Zhang–Korda in three 2025 events, producing a 4-1-0 mark.
Tickets for the Saturday session at Bernardus sold out in 42 minutes; single-day grounds passes for Monday practice are still €75 on the tournament site and include access to the 16th amphitheater, the best spot to watch the long-hitters decide whether to risk the water-guarded bunker line at 298 yards.
Bookmark the live tables on letaccess.eu and lpga.com; they refresh every Monday at 12:00 GMT and show not only positions but also projected points up for grabs at upcoming events. If you want one sleeper to track, follow Germany Alexandra Försterling–she sits 14th in Europe, has Bernardus membership, and owns a 67.3 course average from her last six starts there.
European Points List Cut-Off and Captain Picks Count
Lock 30 August 2026 into your calendar if you want to know exactly who qualifies automatically; the Ladies European Tour will freeze the European Points List after the final putt drops at the Czech Ladies Challenge, and only the top seven names on that sheet secure red shirts without a phone call from the captain.
The LET has trimmed the window to seven counting events in 2026, down from ten in 2023, so every shot carries the weight of 115 ranking points per win and 20 points for 10th place, meaning a single missed cut can shove a player from fourth to twelfth in a week.
Catriona Matthew will sit with her vice-captains in the media centre at 19:00 CET that evening, announce the seven qualifiers, then reveal five captain picks–two more than she had in 2023–giving her room to absorb in-form LPGA Europeans who lag on LET starts, chase a hot hand like Linn Grant after a summer ankle lay-off, or balance foursomes chemistry if the list spits out four rookies.
Expect Matthew to telegraph at least two of her choices during the ISPS Handa World Invitational two weeks earlier; she has already told Swedish radio she will not leave major winners such as Anna Nordqvist or Madelene Sagström twisting beyond that event, so their performance there sets the market for the remaining bubble spots.
If you track the maths, a player like Georgia Hall can finish eighth on points and still feel safe, because Matthew has never picked lower than 180th in the Rolex Rankings for her wildcards; Hall, currently 41st, would need to implode through the summer or risk injury to fall out of that comfort zone.
USA Solheim Rankings vs Rolex Standings Differences
Focus on the Solheim points list if you want to know who is actually playing their way onto Stacy Lewis’ 2026 team. Through the opening 14 weeks of the 2025 LPGA season, Zhang sits 9th on the Rolex but only 17th in Solheim points because doubles count only once and majors award 150 pts instead of 100. The gap widens for Kupcho (Rolex 21st, Solheim 33rd) and Korda (Rolex 4th, Solheim 2nd) thanks to the 25 % bonus for top-10 finishes in the previous Cup.
Rolex rewards every dollar; Solheim rewards every top-20. A T-3 at the Chevron Championship pumps 200,000 USD into a player world-ranking formula yet adds only 90 Solheim pts, the same as a solo-second at the JM Eagle. Conversely, a T-12 at the U.S. Women Open pays 82,000 USD and 0.48 world-ranking points yet still delivers 55 Solheim pts. That is why Emma Talley jumped from 78th to 55th on the Solheim board without cracking the Rolex top 250.
Keep an eye on the fall swing. The final three LPGA events before automatic qualifying closes (Indy Women in Tech, Portland Classic, Walmart NW Arkansas) carry a 1.5× Solheim multiplier because they fall inside the 2026 season window. If Rose Zhang repeats her 2024 Indy win she would collect 195 pts instead of 130, enough to vault her from the current cut-line to a virtual lock at No. 7. Meanwhile, the Rolex list will move only a few decimal places, proving again that the two ladders measure entirely different kinds of momentum.
Q&A:
When exactly will the 2026 Solheim Cup be played, and why was that particular week chosen?
The matches are locked in for 11–13 September 2026 at Bernardus Golf in the Netherlands. The LPGA and LET worked backward from the Dutch weather charts: mid-September historically gives the highest chance of calm, dry days in North Brabant while still finishing before the autumn school break, so families can attend without holiday conflicts. It also leaves a clear four-week buffer after the Women British Open and three weeks before the start of the Asian swing, giving both teams time for a proper captain pick reveal and a short scouting trip.
How many captain picks will each side have, and has that number changed lately?
Europe keeps the 2024 formula six automatic qualifiers plus six captain choices while the U.S. has trimmed its picks from six to four, meaning eight Americans will qualify automatically through points. The change was voted in last December to reward more consistent season-long play, but it also forces U.S. captain Angela Stanford to gamble earlier on form rather than hot streaks in August.
What type of grass and layout quirks should players expect at Bernardus?
Bernardus switched to pure creeping-bent greens in 2022, a rarity on the European mainland, so green speeds can be pushed to 12 on the Stimpmeter without fear of summer burn-off. The course is built on former marshland: holes 2, 8 and 14 sit beside drainage ditches that funnel North-Sea wind into tight corridors, while the par-5 18th bends around a lake that gobbles up 40% of second-shot lay-ups. Expect lots of 3-woods off the tee and low-spin approaches to hold the false fronts.
Who are the early locks for Team Europe, and which rookies could sneak in?
At the moment, Céline Boutier, Charley Hull and Leona Maguire are inside the top six on LET points, so barring injury they’re inked in. On the bubble, 19-year-old Swede Ingrid Lindblad is 11th but has two more LET events before the closing date; if she finishes top-5 in both she jumps inside the auto spots. Another name whispered in captain meetings is Scottish amateur Hannah Darling she not LET-eligible yet, but a T-3 at the 2025 Women Irish Open would secure enough points to qualify as a Category-9 member, making her a tantalising 12th-hour pick.
Reviews
Noah Sterling
Europe birds chirp "home soil" but my wallet chirps louder: fly the Yanks over, let ‘em drown in sea-spray and wee drams, then cash the upset.
Tobias
September '26 can’t roll in fast enough Adare oaks already rustle like flags, and my heart on the first tee with Leona and Rose. I’ll trade sleep for sunrise leaderboards, brew coffee over stats, and cheer every iron that kisses Irish sky. Europe, USA whatever, I just want goosebumps when the last putt drops and the gallery roars loud enough to wake the Atlantic.
Ava Miller
My stomach knots up each time I picture 2026. I want Annika squad to torch the myths about "home-course magic" but I also want them to torch the slow-burn myth that Europe needs an ocean of crowd noise to feel brave. I walked the Bernheim hills last month; the greens already shimmy like shy teenagers. If Leona and Linn can’t read those subtle ridges by May, the Cup slips before the anthem ends. And yet am I the only one twitchy about the automatic picks? Last cycle we bled points on Saturday foursomes because depth masqueraded as chemistry. I keep replaying Céline putt that horseshoed in ’21; one inch left and we’d be chasing three-peat, not redemption. Please, give me a rookie who greets pressure with a yawn, not a gulp.
SilverMuse
My heart already hums like a golf cart climbing the first rise at Bernardus. I picture Céline silky swing mirroring the morning mist over the lake, while Nelly eyes sparkle, ready to pounce on every yard. September 2026 feels stitched from sunshine and goosebumps; I’ll be the one in the grandstand gripping a rose-gold thermos, whispering "trust the read" to every brave putt.
Miles Donovan
My buddy swears the K Club 15th is haunted by a 3-iron he snap-hooked in ’06; if that ghost returns, I’ll bribe it with Irish whiskey and a signed poster of Catriona Matthew just to see Nelly face when Leona drains the putt that keeps the pot in European hands.