LPGA Loses Another Tourney As China Event Will Not Be Held

By Jon Show, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

LPGA Tournament In China Will Not Be Staged This Year

The LPGA and IMG announced that the IMG-owned tournament scheduled in China for October 23-25 will not be staged this year. Neither side outlined a specific reason, but IMG was unable to find a title sponsor to foot the $1.9M purse and no course had been announced. Last year’s inaugural event was title sponsored by Grand China Air. IMG and the LPGA said they are working to get the event back on the schedule in '10 and '11. IMG also owns the season-ending Tour Championship in Houston and was unable to secure a title sponsor when Stanford Financial was taken over by the U.S. government. The LPGA previously agreed to let IMG reduce the Tour Championship purse from $2M to $1.5M and scale back weekend television coverage from NBC to Golf Channel. The LPGA calendar has 27 official money events this year, down from 34 last year. China is the fourth LPGA event to be canceled or postponed despite being listed on the '09 schedule when it was released in November. The Ginn Open in Orlando and the Kapalua LPGA Classic were scrapped by their respective owners and the Bell Micro LPGA Classic in Alabama was moved from October to next spring.