The Team Behind Team USA: Inside Summit Golf Brands’ Solheim Cup Partnership

All images courtesy of Summit Golf Brands.

By Mackenzie Puryear

Summit Golf Brands and the Solheim Cup go together like rain gear and a forecast in Europe. The relationship began at the PGA Show in 2014, when Anne McCarthy of the LPGA approached Brendan McHugh—now Senior Vice President and Co-Head of Global Sales at Summit Golf Brands—about supplying rainwear for the 2015 Solheim Cup.

More than a decade later, the partnership has only expanded. For the 2026 Solheim Cup, Team USA will be outfitted entirely by Summit Golf Brands, wearing uniforms from Draddy Sport and outerwear from Zero Restriction.

When Apparel Becomes Equipment

Summit really understands what it means to outfit a team. Beyond the Solheim Cup, the company has experience with the Presidents Cup and the World Champions Cup, outfitting both American and international teams.

“We see it as a great responsibility,” McHugh said. “These players, they’re the best players in the world, and they want to perform. They’re playing for their country, and yes, it’s a uniform, but they need to make sure that they can play well, execute, and win in it.”

For Summit, outfitting a team is about more than fashion alone. What a player wears becomes part of her equipment, and it needs to function and perform at the highest level.

“If you’re playing in the elements, or playing in the rain, you don’t want to be at a disadvantage because you don’t have the appropriate equipment on to perform your best,” McHugh explained.

Rain is not the only consideration. On chilly mornings, when adding layers in Europe can feel inevitable, each piece needs to support a player’s performance rather than hinder it.

Women’s Golf Is Part of the DNA

It’s clear that Summit understands outerwear, but why is the company such a good fit for Team USA and the Solheim Cup in particular? Not only is it a long-standing partnership, but it just keeps expanding.

Brendan McHugh answers without hesitation: “Women’s golf is part of our DNA.”

In fact, women’s golf now makes up 40% of Summit’s product assortment across the company. Summit has supported the women’s game for over a decade—well before its recent surge in participation, interest, and investment.

“It really is a great fit all around, from the ethos of who we are as a company wanting to support golf, wanting to support the women’s game, and providing and manufacturing incredible products for them to use,” McHugh said.

Over the last 15 years, Summit has expanded its women’s offerings at both the brand and style levels. In 2023, the company introduced the B. Draddy Women’s Collection. A year later, it launched the more golf-specific B. Draddy Women’s Sport line, complementing its women’s offerings from Fairway & Greene and Zero Restriction.

Growing its women’s lines is not a new initiative for Summit; it is part of the company’s identity. The Solheim Cup provides another platform to create awareness of both the company and its work within women’s golf apparel.

A Partnership, Not a Sponsorship

Outfitting a team is about more than sponsorship.

“We don’t consider it a sponsorship, really. We very much consider it a partnership. We are partners with Team USA, the LPGA, the Solheim Cup, and Captain Angela Stanford. We want them to do well, and if they do well, then we’ll do well,” McHugh said.

A sponsorship is generally defined as providing money or resources to an event, person, or organization in exchange for promotion. A partnership, however, suggests something more collaborative: two sides working together, sharing responsibilities, and pursuing a common goal.

That is how the team at Summit views its relationship with Team USA.

“We want to support Team USA. We want to feel like we’re the right fit from a company standpoint and product standpoint to help them accomplish their goals, which is our goal.”

McHugh described it as a mutually beneficial relationship—one in which everyone is working together toward the same objective.

The Team Behind Team USA

There’s a lot more that goes into outfitting a team than designing red, white, and blue uniforms. Behind every successful partnership is a team of people handling all the details.

While Team USA prepares its strategy and game plans for Bernardus Golf, Summit is making its own preparations to ensure every piece is ready when the players arrive.

The process involves multiple departments, each contributing to products the players can trust in competition. Billy Draddy, Creative Director at Summit Golf Brands, designed Team USA’s uniforms alongside his design partner, Senior Vice President of Ladies Design Kristen Casner. The work then extends to Summit’s sales, inventory, production, decoration, shipping, and fulfillment teams.

What began with a conversation about rainwear at the 2014 PGA Show has grown into a company-wide effort to outfit Team USA across the full collection.

“I just want to recognize the design team, the inventory team, the production team, and the shipping and fulfillment team,” McHugh said. “We really feel like we’re in it as a team just like Team USA is.”