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NAPLES, FLORIDA | On Friday, LPGA commissioner Mike Whan marched into an anteroom next to the fitness center at Tiburón Golf Club in Naples, Florida, for his annual state-of-the-tour address. Like everything else in 2020, this was a gathering like no other. Whan appeared before a camera with a backdrop. The only people in the room were LPGA staff and some scoring volunteers.
That didn’t make the news any less important or impressive. In addition to confirming that sponsorships, viewership and fan engagement are all up – some by eye-popping margins given the pandemic – Whan made the 2021 schedule public for the first time.
The LPGA Tour will play 34 events next season for a cumulative purse of $76.45 million. It will tee off Jan. 21-24 with the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions in Lake Buena Vista, Florida – an event that will be contested with limited fans who will have gone through testing protocols before arriving on site. The season will end, as it usually does, back in Naples at the CME Group Tour Championship the week before Thanksgiving.
In between those bookends, things will look quite a bit different. The winter Asian swing, which normally encompasses February and early March, has been moved to May with the Gainbridge Championship, the second event of the season, moving to late February at a Florida location to be determined. Another Drive On Championship, this one presented by South Korean broadcasting company JTBC, has been added in March at Golden Ocala Golf and Equestrian Club in Central Florida.
Also, a new match-play event will be contested in the United States in May and a new mixed stroke-play event with the men will be played in conjunction with the European Tour and the Ladies European Tour at a European location to be announced.
“There's a lot to be excited about, and at the end of the day I'm just excited to know that each year we have announced (something) bigger and better,” Whan said. “This is a year in which two things are true: Golf won, all the viewership of golf is up, and most other sports isn't; and women's sports won.
“Somebody told me the other day you're probably riding those two waves. The cockiness in me said, ‘No, I think we're actually driving those two waves.’ I don't know if that's true, but I'm going to say that. If you want to quote me on that, that will be just fine.
“I believe that we're a major part of those two waves, and I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the team that made it possible and I'm proud of the check writers ... that could have very easily said, ‘We’ll see you in '22,’ and didn't because they knew this was important to us. It was important to our players and it's important to these fans that have followed this reconfigured 2020 season.”
Steve Eubanks