Ginn-Sponsored LPGA Event To Take Place Of ShopRite Classic
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Sorenstam To Host Ginn’s
New LPGA Tournament |
Ginn Clubs & Resorts will sponsor and stage a second LPGA tournament, the
May 31-June 3 Ginn Tribute Hosted by Annika Sorenstam, at the RiverTowne Country
Club Course at the Belvidere Resort near Charleston, South Carolina. The event
will have a $2.6M purse, the largest of any LPGA regular-season event. IMG, which
reps Sorenstam, will run the event. The tournament will pay tribute to a different
LPGAer each year (THE DAILY). In Columbia, Bob Gillespie notes the Ginn
Tribute will be televised by The Golf Channel on Thursday and Friday, and by NBC
over the weekend. Bobby Ginn said the LPGA is “not the ‘other tour’
anymore. I think they’ve got a level of excitement, a level of professionalism
that has become contagious, electric” (Columbia STATE, 7/18).
SHOPRITE: In Philadelphia, Joe Logan reports the Ginn Tribute
event will take the place of the ShopRite Classic next year on the LPGA schedule
— the first week in June, before the McDonald’s LPGA Championship.
ShopRite Classic officials have threatened a lawsuit to prevent the move. ShopRite
Classic Exec Dir Ruth Harrison said in a statement, “We have binding agreement
through June 2008 that ensures our date on the LPGA schedule. And we intend to
take any and all steps, including legal action if necessary, to enforce that agreement.”
Tournament officials said that they are “not angry at [Sorenstam] or, for
that matter, at Ginn” over the new event. But ShopRite Classic Dir of Communications
Rodger Gottlieb “took a swipe” at LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens,
saying, “Any of the prior leadership of the LPGA would have done it in a
way so that it wouldn’t be a direct affront to another tournament.”
While the LPGA did not issue an official response yesterday, Bivens had said Harrison
and ShopRite have “not had a contract with the LPGA for five years.”
Logan notes the ShopRite event’s purse was only $1.4M (PHILADELPHIA
INQUIRER, 7/18). While Harrison indicated that the event “hasn’t
had a formal contract with the LPGA since 2000, she points to a letter tournament
organizers consider binding.” The June 29, 2005, letter, signed by then-LPGA
VP/Tournament Business Affairs Rob Neal, “outlines the LPGA’s plan
for the event to be played at the end of May through 2008” (Scott
Hamilton, SBJ, 7/17 issue). More Harrison: “I feel like somebody
punched us in the stomach. We were talking to them about a contract, and they
were negotiating behind our backs with someone else” (ATLANTIC CITY
PRESS, 7/17).
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