LPGA's Mike Whan Confident Year's First Major Will Stay Even If Kraft Leaves After '14

Kraft Foods' contract to title sponsor the LPGA Kraft Nabisco Championship “expires with the 2014 tournament,” but tour and event officials both indicated that they are “more than confident that the Coachella Valley will host the women's major for years to come,” according to Larry Bohannan of the Palm Springs DESERT SUN. The Kraft Nabisco Championship, “under a variety of names, has been part of the desert golf scene since the event debuted in 1972 as the richest event in women's golf.” Concern for the future of the tournament “began in the summer of 2009 when Kraft Foods exercised a clause in what had been a perpetual contract between the LPGA and Nabisco.” Kraft inherited the tournament when its parent company bought Nabisco. That clause “produced a five-year contract that started with the 2010 tournament.” Kraft Nabisco Tournament Chair David Blake-Thomas said that the ‘09 move “was part of an exit strategy from the tournament by Kraft." But he said that the company’s “position has shifted.” For LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan, losing the tournament because Kraft might leave after the ‘14 event “is just not an option.” Whan: “We have had enough dialogue with other interested sponsors to know there is interest in this tournament and location. I think David and I both know that there is interest in the market and in the event.” Blake-Thomas said that speculation on the future of Kraft “is difficult because by the end of this year the company will split into two companies, a North American food company and an international company that will sell cookies, candy and crackers in North America.” Whan said, “This one is the faces of the LPGA. The jump in the pond, the walk down 18. I can't imagine, and I said this to the players, I can't imagine being the commissioner coming to you and telling you that that walk is going to end” (Palm Springs DESERT SUN, 3/31).