Well, that didn’t take long. Mike Whan has been in Far Hills, New Jersey, as chief executive officer of the USGA for about six months, give or take a week or two, and he’s already fundamentally transformed one of the world’s biggest championships. As of last Friday, the U.S. Women’s Open will henceforth be known as the U.S. Women’s Open presented by ProMedica, a health services company based out of Toledo, Ohio.
A sponsorship embedded into the title of a USGA championship is not something most of us thought we ever would see. It’s not something Whan was sure about, either. At a gathering in New Jersey last fall, he told a story about conversations he’d had with some executive committee members about sponsors defraying costs to turn the red ink most USGA championships bleed into a manageable misty pink. After some pursed lips and wrinkled brows, the response Whan got was, “Let’s keep this one clean,” as if grimy sponsor dollars tainted things.
But Whan is nothing if not a doer. Through persistence and an infallible logic, he took a championship that had been accused of skimping on everything from marketing to player dining and transformed it into the richest event in women’s golf. This spring at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club – the Donald Ross gem in Southern Pines, North Carolina, once owned by LPGA Tour legend Peggy Kirk Bell – the best female players in the world will compete for a purse of $10 million with the goal of raising it to $12 million in the next five years.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,” Whan said, quoting an African proverb at an event in New York announcing this change. “As caffeinated as I am, I love going fast. But I want to go farther. And to do that, we have to do it together.”
In addition to the purse increase, Whan and his team announced a slate of historic venues that will host the U.S. Women’s Open in the future – “cathedrals of the game,” they called them. Those include: Riviera in 2026; Inverness Club in 2027; a return of back-to-back opens for men and women at Pinehurst in 2029; Interlachen in 2030; and Oakland Hills in 2031 and 2042.
“I was speaking with one of our executive committee members, Nick Price … and he said to me, ‘Winning a (USGA championship) is a tremendous honor, but it also matters where you win,” said John Bodenhamer, senior managing director of championships for the USGA.
“I don’t know if people understand the impact of something like this (USGA announcement) on women, women’s sports and young girls in general. This will further the idea that if you can see it, you can be it. It’s a big deal.”
Mollie Marcoux Samaan
Putting these venues up alongside Olympic Club (last year), Pebble Beach (2023), Oakmont (2028 and 2038) and Merion (2034 and 2046) gives one the sense that Whan wants the USGA to lead the charge for the women’s game.
However, they are not the first. If anything, the USGA has simply taken the lead in what has become a worldwide race to elevate women’s golf. Purses on the LPGA Tour have been inching up for some time, harkening back to the strategy Whan instituted when he became LPGA commissioner a dozen years back. The idea was that if you filled the calendar knowing that players would pick and choose where they played, market forces would drive purses north as sponsors competed for the best fields.
That incremental rise made a big jump in August when Martin Slumbers of the R&A, along with IMG and insurance giant AIG, raised the purse of the AIG Women’s Open from $4.5 million to $5.8 million with the commitment to add another $1 million in 2022.
Then in October, Chevron came aboard as the new title sponsor of what originally was called the Colgate Dinah Shore but for the past seven years has been known as the ANA Inspiration. The final iteration of that event in Rancho Mirage, California, will take place this April with the purse jumping from $3.1 million to $5 million. The event will move to Texas in 2023.
A month after the Chevron announcement, Terry Duffy, chairman of CME Group, proclaimed he will boost the purse of his 60-player CME Group Tour Championship to $7 million beginning this year.
“I don’t know if people understand the impact of something like this (USGA announcement) on women, women’s sports and young girls in general,” LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan said at the announcement in New York on Friday. “This will further the idea that if you can see it, you can be it. It’s a big deal.”
The game still has a long way to go, especially at the developmental levels. Shortly after her season ended, Meghan McLaren, the English professional who committed to the Symetra Tour for 2021, ran the numbers. McLaren finished 13th on the Symetra Tour money list and won an event. She played without a caddie most of the year, drove to every event she could, and stayed with host families when available. Still, McLaren calculated that she would have lost $31,000 in 2021 without sponsorships.
Still, the trendlines at every level are moving in a positive direction.
“I don’t think it can be overstated how important an announcement like this is,” Marcoux Samaan said. “I think that sport has the opportunity to change society and change the world. And an announcement like this gives girls something big to dream about.”
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