LPGA Championship Host Bulle Rock, Tour Approach Crossroads
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LPGA Championship Host Bulle Rock Generates
Debate Among Tour Officials, Players |
The LPGA Tour and Maryland-based Bulle Rock Golf Course, at which the McDonald's LPGA Championship today tees off for the fourth consecutive year, "appear to be approaching a crossroads," according to Don Markus of the Baltimore SUN. With the tournament's charitable donations "dropping to an all-time low of $1[M] last year ... and some players still questioning its out-of-the-way locale, Bulle Rocke's foundation as a major championship site has not quite settled." LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens said of the tournament's "dramatic decline in charitable donations" since moving to Bulle Rock, "It's not that it's unimportant, but the venue, the setup, the fans, the field, the buzz, the whole fan experience -- especially for a major -- is what's most important to the LPGA." While "whispers have quieted about the LPGA moving the event elsewhere before the current five-year contract runs out after 2009," Bivens last week said that "talks have already begun about the direction the tournament will take starting in 2010." Players' reactions to the course have been "decidedly mixed, usually split along generational lines." While many younger players "say they enjoy Bulle Rock and believe it will grow into a major championship setting, if it hasn't already, many veterans are less than enthusiastic." LPGA veteran Lorie Kane: "I think where women's golf is, it would probably be better for us to be in an environment for more people to come." Kane added that the course, despite drawing a reported 92,000 fans for the week in '07, is "not exactly fan friendly, either." Meanwhile, Markus wrote the tournament's future at Bulle Rock also "revolves around the relationship between" title sponsor McDonalds and course Owner the Paterakis family, which has been "making buns for [McDonald's] for decades." LPGA Championship Founding co-Chair Frank Quinn said that LPGA member Annika Sorenstam's recent retirement announcement and golfer Michelle Wie's struggles "have not made the LPGA any less attractive to McDonald's, which reportedly was responsible for making Wie the first amateur to play in the event" (Baltimore SUN, 6/1).
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