While the atypical Wednesday-Saturday schedule used during last week’s LPGA Lotte Championship in Hawaii "may not become typical anytime soon, the tour is exploring the possibility of [using] alternate scheduling more often in the future," according to Randall Mell of GOLF CHANNEL. LPGA CMO Jon Podany said, "It gave us a feature telecast on Wednesday night when we were totally on our own and not competing against any other tours. We certainly like that spotlight telecast on a Wednesday night, and we’ll see if our fans kind of figured out that we were finishing on Saturday and if we get the kind of final-round numbers we usually get on a Sunday." Nielsen data "shows the Lotte’s final round was watched by more viewers this year than any LPGA event outside the year’s first major, the Kraft Nabisco Championship." Podany said that the tour "wouldn’t want alternate scheduling every week, but it is discussing possible future opportunities with Golf Channel." He added that the LPGA has been "exploring possible Monday finishes with the network." Podany: "We haven’t gone there yet, that’s a little more operationally difficult for tournaments, in terms of volunteers and title sponsors having their guests there on Monday and so forth, but I don’t think the Saturday finish presents the same kind of challenges" (GOLFCHANNEL.com, 4/25).
