LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan "plans to huddle in a month or so" with ANA Inspiration officials, as well as the title sponsor, to evaluate how the tournament fared this week up against the Augusta National Women's Amateur, but he "believes the major will stay right where it is on the LPGA schedule next year," according to Randall Mell of GOLFCHANNEL.com. Whan said that the other options are "moving the event up two weeks, to the week currently held by the Bank of Hope Founders Cup, or moving it back, to be played the week after the Masters." However, Whan said that "neither is a great option." Moving the ANA up "creates conflict with both Mission Hills and Wildfire Golf Club, home of the Founders Cup." Additionally, moving it to the week after The Masters "conflicts with the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival" in Indio, Calif. Whan said of keeping the ANA in its current date, "Maybe this can be the celebration of women's golf that it could be" (GOLFCHANNEL.com, 4/3). Whan said that he thinks both tournaments this week are a "positive from a business perspective and a sign of significant change in the women's game." ESPN.com's Charlotte Gibson noted never in Whan's tenure has there been a weekend of women's golf that has "gotten more than 45 hours of live television coverage, the amount anticipated this weekend." Whan: "It has the potential to be the greatest weekend celebration of women's golf that we've ever seen outside of the Olympics" (ESPN.com, 4/3).
STEALING SOME THUNDER: In Palm Springs, Larry Bohannan writes the ANWA is a "terrific thing for women's golf," and it is "not that Augusta National is hosting a women's amateur tournament that is a problem." The issue is that Augusta National is "hosting the tournament this week" because it falls at the same time as the ANA. This "should be a week where the golf world focuses on the history and tradition and the great play at Mission Hills Country Club." But anything that happens at Augusta National will "outshine anything else in golf at the same moment, and that will be true this week" (Palm Springs DESERT SUN, 4/4). In Toronto, Jon McCarthy notes the overlap between the ANA and the ANWA has "already made for difficult decisions for a handful of the women's top amateur players who were invited to both." Four of the top 11 amateurs "decided to skip the chance to play at Augusta National in order to accept an exemption into the ANA." LPGA player Stacy Lewis said, "It's unfortunate really that they have to make that choice. They shouldn't have to. I would love to see the [Augusta National Women's Amateur] played at a different time of year" (TORONTO SUN, 4/4).
DIFFICULT SITUATION: In N.Y., Karen Crouse notes Augusta National "didn't admit its first female members" until '12, and while it has "since opened its course to boys and girls ... and to amateur women, these inclusive gestures have ignored" the LPGA. The Drive, Chip and Putt Championship, held on Sunday, has "siphoned television and other media coverage from the final round of the ANA." With the advent of the ANWA, the "spotlight on the best women's players in the world has become more diffuse" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/4). GOLF DIGEST's John Strege wrote there is "no denying that Augusta put the ANA, the LPGA's first major, in a difficult spot" (GOLFDIGEST.com, 4/3).
