Next month’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship was officially introduced on Monday at Westchester Country Club, the site of the inaugural event. Well, sort of. As organizers and executives from all parties, KPMG, the LPGA, and PGA of America, pointed out, this tournament is not replacing the former 60-year-old LPGA Championship in the major line-up, but instead, the new partnership is elevating it.
On Thursday the LPGA and PGA of America announced a partnership to rebrand and form a new major championship, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, which will replace the Wegmans LPGA Championship, starting in 2015.
LPGA to open in the Bahamas
Perhaps you can call it a Baker’s Dozen. For the first time in 13 years, the 2014 LPGA tournament schedule will kick off in January. On Wednesday the LPGA announced that the second-annual Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic will serve as the Tour’s season-opening event when it returns to the Ocean Club Golf Course at Atlantis, Paradise Island, Bahamas, January 20-26, 2014.
Aloha!
Great news — the “New Hawaii Event” on the LPGA’s 2012 schedule will indeed take place (with a Saturday finish as we suspected). Which also means there might be three new tournaments in North America (again, nice work to Commissioner Mike Whan). Here’s the press release:
The defending champ says woohoo!
Hit by a tough economy over the last several years, the LPGA was forced to look beyond North American borders and to Asia to fill its slim schedule — and now, the tour is expanding its global reach to Australia. Earlier this week, the LPGA announced the co-sanctioning of the Women’s Australian Open at Royal Melbourne in February 2012. Which can’t be anything other than good news, right?
Lexi: the answer to filling the void of a dominant American star?
16-year-old American Lexi Thompson trumped the history books on Sunday, beating the field by five shots at the Navistar LPGA Classic to become the youngest winner ever on the LPGA. During a tough stretch for the struggling women’s tour that’s lacking star power and trying to remain relevant with only 23 events on its schedule — the lowest number since 1971 — Lexi’s dominant victory couldn’t have come at a better time.
But LPGA commissioner Mike Whan delivered a major buzzkill.
Live Chat
