When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Another week, another strange decision by the LPGA to resume play, this time in the New Zealand Women's Open that was eventually finished on Monday. Brooke Henderson is your winner.
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A roundup of the player criticism here at Golfweek, which included Belen Mozo suggesting the players "were like sheep."
The video is pretty epic if you haven't seen it.
I suppose the best takeaway from last week's well-documented Evian Championship fiasco is that sponsors should be careful what they wish for.
Elevated to "major" status by the LPGA Tour to sustain the sponsorship, everything has backfired. Stacy Lewis passed this year. The weather was once again awful. The play was its traditionally horrible pace (six hours Sunday!). The event was a 54-hole playing after a false start Thursday.
It all looks especially bad when coupled with the Evian's forced major status implemented after years of being a player favorite, the LPGA Tour's equivalent of The Players or BMW PGA Championship. (BTW, kudos though to winner Anna Nordqvist for surviving in awful final round conditions and playoff weather, Beth Ann Baldry writes here for Golfweek.)
The SI/Golf.com guys were not kind.
Michael Bamberger, senior writer, Sports Illustrated: I am fine with it but then I don't consider the Evian Championship a major. Just a nice event, played at a painfully slow pace on Sunday. The women have four real majors and I will use the historic names: U.S. and British Opens, the LPGA Championship, the Dinah Shore/Mission Hills.
Alan Shipnuck, senior writer, Sports Illustrated (@alanshipnuck): Agree that the Evian is not even on par with the Players, and the latter tournament is miles from being a major. It was a bad call and the wrong one to wipe out so many scores but at least that was on Thursday. The ensuing three days featured lotsa good golf and the final round was tightly contested by a bunch of top players. So, in the end it was an okay result, if we're grading on a curve.
The mess is for LPGA Commish Mike Whan and Evian to sort out, but the bad press alone should remind companies that sometimes having a really swell event is a nice thing and trying too hard to force elevated status can backfire.
Keeping sponsors happy is no easy proposition given the premium they are paying, but when it comes to majors we rarely have to deal with the bill payers. In elevating the Evian to major status, even when the tour already had four, the Golf Gods have worked dilligently to make that decision look bad. 
After first round play of the 2017 Evian was called at 10 am due to rain and the slate wiped clean, the understandable griping began.
Beth Ann Baldry for Golfweek:
This was the best decision, Whan said, to “have the cleanest, fairest competitive round that’s still going to finish on a Sunday with somebody jumping from an airplane with a flag behind them.”
That last statement, which refers to the elaborate 18th green celebration that includes a parachutist, shows the importance to the sponsor of having a Sunday finish. No tournament on the LPGA schedule has more glitz and glamour than Evian, where there are galas and cocktail parties and fireworks that rival Disney World throughout the week. Evian rolls out the pink carpet here, and it’s lovely to see.
But, as one player put it, “it’s never been about golf here.”
Ryan Lavner at GolfChannel says this is a credibility killer for Evian as a major, if it had much to begin with.
If you want the Evian to be viewed like a major – and, to be fair, its worthiness was debated long before this week – then you have to treat it like one. Every attempt should be made to play 72 holes.
And Steve Eubanks at Global Golf Post talked or texted with many and no one was pleased with the Commissioner.
He’s was right about that last part. Whan has seldom blundered in his tenure as commissioner. If anything, he’s worked far more miracles than he’s made mistakes. But this was a whiff. Yes, the golf course was wet (although by 4 p.m. in France, the sun was shining and there was very little wind).
While this is a credibility killing moment for the Evian and LPGA Tour's bid to force unwanted major status on us since 2013, but the episode also reminds us that for all of our quibbles with the various majors, they have earned credibility by insisting on playing 72 holes and never shaping the conclusion around a parachutist.
What a story seeing Stacy Lewis pledge her winnings to the relief effort in her hometown following hurricane Harvey.
From Beth Ann Baldry's Golfweek story on the win and match by her sponsor:
The now 12-time winner played for a cause bigger than herself, pledging early in the week to donate all her winnings to Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. Lewis’ first-place check at the Cambia Portland Classic meant $195,000 would go toward helping people in her hometown rebuild their lives. Her sponsor, KPMG, surprised Lewis on Sunday by announcing that the company would match that number, bringing the total to $390,000. Lewis also collected shoes from fellow players to ship back to Houston.
In reporting on the PGA Tour landing new sponsor Sentry for the Tournament of Champions, Doug Ferguson noted this about the efforts to turn this into a joint PGA Tour-LPGA Tour winners-only kick off event.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan had said last year that the tour was contemplating a scenario where the LPGA Tour and the PGA Tour play a winners-only format at the same venue. “That has not materialized here,” Monahan said.
Meanwhile, the Sony Open in Honolulu is the week after the Tournament of Championship. Its title sponsorship ends in 2018. For years there was concern that if one of the tournaments had left, it would be more difficult to stage the other as a single event in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
“We have been playing golf in Hawaii for over 50 years,” Monahan said. “And the two tournaments present a strong start to the calendar year that we looking forward to continuing.”
It would have been a fun idea and may still happen, though the release notes the event's playing in January 2018 but it sounds like it may have to be nimble beyond that year.
For Immediate Release:
Sentry Becomes New Title Sponsor of Tournament of Champions
Leading insurance company signs 5-year deal to sponsor winners-only event at Kapalua
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida, and STEVENS POINT, Wisconsin (August 16, 2017) – The PGA TOUR and Sentry, one of the largest business-focused mutual insurance companies in the United States, today announced a five-year agreement making Sentry the new title sponsor of the exclusive winners-only Tournament of Champions at Kapalua Resort in Hawaii.
The newly named Sentry Tournament of Champions will maintain its traditional spot as the first tournament in January 2018 when the 2017-18 PGA TOUR schedule resumes following the holiday break. The agreement extends through the 2021-22 season.
“Sentry Insurance is proud to partner with the PGA TOUR to sponsor the Tournament of Champions, held on beautiful Maui,” said Pete McPartland, Sentry chairman of the board, president, and CEO. “This tournament and its champions format is the ideal way to more broadly introduce Sentry to the business insurance audience.”
While this represents Sentry’s first major sports sponsorship, it has been involved with golf since 1984 when the company built SentryWorld, Wisconsin’s first destination golf course. Sponsoring the Sentry Tournament of Champions is considered a natural next step for Sentry, providing an opportunity to reach a wide business audience.
“We are thrilled to welcome Sentry to the PGA TOUR and become its first major venture into sports sponsorship,” said Brian Oliver, PGA TOUR Senior Vice President of Sponsorship & Partnership. “Sentry is highly respected as a company that is dedicated to its employees, its customers and embraces the spirit of giving back. So, we view this as a relationship between two organizations that hold common values.”
Sentry assumes sponsorship of a tournament that dates to 1953, when it was introduced at Las Vegas’ Desert Inn Country Club as an event for winners from the previous season. The Tournament of Champions remained at Desert Inn CC until 1967, when it moved to Stardust Country Club. The tournament moved from Las Vegas in 1969 to La Costa Country Club in Carlsbad, California, where it remained for 30 years before relocating to its current home at Kapalua Resort on the island of Maui.
As might be expected with a winners-only format, the Sentry Tournament of Champions has a rich history of champions, from World Golf Hall of Fame members to modern-day stars, as represented by just the past five winners: defending champion Justin Thomas, a four-time winner this season, including at Sunday’s PGA Championship; Jordan Spieth (2016); Patrick Reed (2015); Zach Johnson (2014); and Dustin Johnson (2013).
For the first time the men's Open Championship edged the U.S. Open in a once unthinkable occrence. And while the 2017 KPMG LPGA was not a morning show, it also beat the U.S. Women's Open ratings.
While the Ricoh Women's British Open had its moments and there may be a Michelle Wie bump, I.K. Kim still held a huge lead heading into the final round. Translation: not the recipe for ratings success.
But are we seeing more evidence yet that sports and golf fans are preferring their golf in morning or prime time hours now that we learn the 2017 Women's British was the season's top rated broadcast?
Remember, all of the events in question are network broadcasts (NBC or Fox), so this is not a cable vs. broadcast network story. And maybe there is no story yet, but the interest in morning golf is a trend worth noting.
For Immediate Release:
HIGHEST-RATED OVERNIGHT TELECAST FOR WOMEN’S GOLF IN MORE THAN A YEAR
The RICOH Women’s British Open Final Round coverage on NBC yesterday posted a .86 Overnight (11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. ET), +15% YOY, making it the highest-rated overnight telecast for women’s golf in more than a year (2016 U.S. Women’s Open; .98) and the highest-rated women’s golf telecast on NBC since 2014 U.S. Women’s Open (1.67). Final Round coverage, which saw I.K. Kim (South Korea) win her first major championship, also became the highest overnight rating at the event in more than 10 years (2006 on ABC; 1.30).
This is the first time in the history of the Women’s British Open that it reigns as the highest-rated women’s golf telecast of the year, to date, despite its morning/early afternoon telecast window.
The comparable final five hours of the RICOH Women’s British Open’s Final Round coverage across Golf Channel and NBC was a .64 (9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. ET), which makes it the highest overnight rating for a women’s major 5-hour telecast in 2017 (FOX, U.S. Open Final Round, 2-7 p.m. ET; .63). And the comparable final three hours of broadcast television coverage makes the RICOH Women’s British Open the highest rated ( 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. ET; .86), +21% vs. U.S. Women’s Open on FOX (4-7 p.m. ET; .71) and +25% vs. KPMG Women’s PGA Championship (3-6 p.m. ET, .69).
Next up in women’s golf will be Golf Channel and NBC’s coverage of the Solheim Cup, the biennial team match play event featuring the United States vs. Europe, being contested in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday, August 18 – Sunday, August 20.
Longtime readers know I have a soft spot for grizzled vets who enter qualifyings and an even softer spot for the ones who don't WD. 
So it was great to see 53-year-old Laura Davies keeping her 37-straight Open Championship streak alive and Paula Creamer making it through for this week's Ricoh Women's British Open, reports GolfChannel.com's Randall Mell.
Creamer even liked the Castle Course where qualifying was played just down the street from Open host Kingsbarns.
After tying for 13th Sunday at the Aberdeen Asset Management Ladies Scottish Open, Creamer drove almost three hours to the Castle Course to cram some homework in before her early Monday morning round.
“It was a beautiful golf course,” Creamer said. “My caddie and I worked really hard, because it was the first time I had ever seen it. I teed off at 7:22, so I couldn’t do much preparation. After I played yesterday, I came out and hit some putts and walked the last three or four holes. It’s an awesome little gem.”
The Women's British Open is getting extensive Golf Channel coverage, 28 hours to be specific, with Rich Lerner and Judy Rankin hosting the proceedings.
Very clever spoof of the new LPGA dress policy by Lexi Thompson. Maybe she took some inspiration from this (thanks reader LC).
A post shared by Lexi Thompson (@lexi) on Jul 20, 2017 at 3:55pm PDT
Whether it was the leaderboard, the low energy (and small) crowds or a Trump effect...or bits of all elements, the U.S. Women's Open appears set to lose its place as the top rated golf telecast of the year. 
Not since the 2002 Dinah Shore has the USGA's premier women's event ever lost to another women's major, as noted by Sports Media Watch, but that appears to be likely this year with the KPMG LPGA expected to out-rate the Open.
This year was the fifth of seven in which the U.S. Women’s Open has failed to crack a 1.0 overnight rating. The only exceptions were last year and Michelle Wie‘s win in 2014 (1.7). Wie was forced to withdraw due to injury at this year’s tournament.
With the U.S. Women's Open set to conclude Sunday at Trump Bedminster--Shanshan Feng has a two stroke lead, reports Golfweek's Beth Ann Baldry--a new or updated LPGA dress code takes effect tomorrow, reports Ashley Mayo at GolfDigest.com and discussed on Morning Drive. She is reporting off of a July 2 memo to players that seems oddly timed, with the inspiration and rationale not entirely clear. And as Stephanie Wei notes, this sound like it rules out much of Michelle Wie's current Nike wardrobe. 
But why and why now when the LPGA is in the spotlight?
A few of the restrictions suggest the schlub alarms went off at a pro-am party, but most seem concerned about the edge-pushing by Symetra Tour and other young players of late. Still, as Mayo writes, the memo and it's all-caps "NOT" references looks like a pre-emptive shot at Instagram "golf babes" aesthetics coupled with some oddball inclusions.
In an era when Instagram "golf babes" are dressing more provocative than ever and consequently attracting more attention and sponsorships than many professional golfers do, perhaps the LPGA Tour is trying to set an entirely different tone in an effort to command respect and separate itself as a highly different, more professional product. Even so, why take away a golfer's freedom to feel like an athlete in joggers? Or leggings? Or racerback tops? These pieces of clothing can look highly polished when worn correctly, so why not encourage a more professional look instead of banning such pieces altogether?
As the U.S. Women's Open gets underway in Bedminster, Golfweek's Beth Ann Nichols talks to Lexi Thompson's mom, Judy, about her cancer fight and the help she received from Morgan Pressel. 
As Judy was told she'd have a long wait until surgery, she reached out to Pressel, who lost her mother to breast cancer and who has since set up a powerful foundation.
Judy hesitated to call because Pressel was at a tournament.
“I will take care of this,” Pressel assured her, “you’re in my hands now.”
Pressel lost her own mother to breast cancer in 2003. Her Morgan & Friends charity event, in which Lexi participates, has raised $6.5 million.
With the help of Pressel, Judy met with doctors almost immediately. Five days later, on June 6, she had surgery.
“If it wasn’t for (Morgan) and her foundation,” Judy said, “I would still be waiting.”
There are many ways to look at this and I've long been of the mindset that Donald Trump as President would overshadow the women's best golfers as they tackle Trump Bedminster. 
But unless he drives his cart on a green during play as he did a few weeks ago at Bedminster, I'm increasingly of the view that he will show up, get too much attention, but ultimately bring some new eyeballs to women's golf. Maybe it's a fantasy, but hey, stranger things have happened in this crazy game
AP’s Tom Canavan sets up the women's U.S. Women's Open at Trump Bedminster and the various ramifications for all involved.
"When we came here, this was all about coming to a great golf course and playing the greatest championship in women's golf," USGA executive director and chief executive Mike Davis said at a media day in May. "The USGA, since its founding in 1894, has never been involved with politics. Our focus is solely on the game of golf."
Whether that decision draws protest remains to be seen.
Ron Sirak discussed on Morning Drive that players wish the President would stay away and even one who is a confidant of the President told him to stay away.
Christine Brennan reports for USA Today that after comments two years ago about Mexicans, followed by a statement from golf organizations, then-candidate Trump threatened to sue the USGA if they moved this U.S. Women's Open. Mike Davis had the fun task of informing the Executive Committee.
Davis informed the USGA executive committee about Trump’s threat on a conference call about two years ago, just as Trump was beginning his successful campaign for president, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the USGA has not publicly discussed the matter.
Davis, who told the group he and other USGA officials had met with Trump, told the executive committee, “We can’t get out of this. He’s going to sue us,” according to the person.
Davis declined comment but later supplied this statement that will no doubt be looked at by the PGA of America, (increasingly concerned?) hosts of the 2022 PGA at Trump Bedminster.
Davis added later in a statement to USA TODAY Sports: “As a matter of policy, the terms of our contracts with championship host sites are confidential and accordingly the USGA will not comment. We are excited that our U.S. Women’s Open Championship week has begun and are focused on providing the ultimate test of golf for the best female players in the world.”
The Palm Beach Post's Kristina Webb confirms that flight plans have been made to ensure safe airspace travels for the President.
The president will head to Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster on Friday and return to Washington, D.C., on Sunday, according to a new notice to pilots posted Monday morning by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Coverage begins Thursday on FS1, with big Fox taking on weekend duties. Strap in!
Paulsen at SportsMediaWatch.com scrutinzed ShowBuzzDaily.com's ratings roundup and noted that the KPMG Women's PGA Championshp fared well against final rounds of the PGA Tour and U.S. Senior Open.
Final round coverage of the Women’s PGA Championship, the second major of the LPGA Tour season, earned a 0.6 final rating and 840,000 viewers on NBC Sunday afternoon — flat in ratings and up 1% in viewership from last year, when NBC aired just 90 minutes of coverage (0.6, 829K), and up a tick and 21% respectively vs. 2015 (0.5, 695K).
It was the largest audience for the tournament in at least five years, and likely further back.
The KPMG beat the U.S. Senior Open telecast but as this chart shows, all of the events on at the same time diverted eyeballs and, as noted here, would have been better served with more coordinated finish times and/or days for the benefit of all.
While the 2017 editions of the KPMG Women's PGA, U.S. Senior Open and Quicken Loans National probably won't be talked about a century from now, each featured enough intrigue for a sports fan to savor. Yet each started and finished at almost the same time on a summer Sunday in the United States.
Former USGA communications director Joe Goode wondered if this was a good or bad thing.
.@GeoffShac @USGA @PGATOUR @LPGA simultaneously airing golf on 3 separate networks. Flawed scheduling or smart programming?
— Joe Goode (@JLGoode3) July 2, 2017
Put me down for seriously flawed programming.
Even with the July 4th holiday falling on a Tuesday, therefore opening up Monday July 3rd as a de facto holiday, three golf tournaments went head to head for no good reason. With each played at compelling venues that alone would attract viewers (Salem CC, Olympia Fields, TPC Potomac), they competed for viewers on a Sunday that not only failed fans, but will fuel the ratings decline narrative.
Next time the five families meet, perhaps they can bring calendars along to their meetings and kick around a way to spread the viewing love. A Monday finish most likely would not have hurt any one of the three, particularly the Quicken Loans, where galleries were thin.
More importantly, tours that too often serve the needs of players over fans fail their players by asking them to compete for the public's attention.
End of rant, beginning of celebration.
The best story of the day and one of the most heartwarming of the year revolved around Danielle Kang breaking through to win her first LPGA Tour event and more importantly, first professional major.
A two-time U.S. Amateur champion, Kang's road to professional success was derailed by heartbreak over the loss of her father to cancer.
Randall Mell writes for GolfChannel.com that Kang would have given anything to have the person who caddied for her in those U.S. Amateur wins present for the pro breakthrough.
“I don't know what it would have felt like to win right away as a rookie,” Kang said. “However, if I could wish anything, I would wish that my dad saw me win.”
Kang’s father died from brain and lung cancer during her second LPGA season.
K.S. Kang was Danielle’s caddie for her U.S. Women’s amateur victories in 2010 and ‘11
“I think that it's been a really difficult road for me for the past four or five years,” Kang said. “It’s life, though. You have to pick yourself up, and you have to keep working hard at it, and then believe in what you're doing, and not letting yourself down.”
Bill Fields of ESPNW on the important role of Kang's Web.com Tour playing brother Alex.
When the tour made its Asia swing that fall, K.S., despite being gravely ill with brain cancer that metastasized to his lungs, watched Danielle play in two events. Three days after traveling to Japan to be with her at the Mizuno Classic in November, he went into a coma. After his death, the bond between his children, already strong, increased. The siblings communicate a couple of dozen times most days, according to their mother, and Alex offered Danielle valuable strategic advice about Olympia Fields.
"She was not the same girl, but her brother, he kept taking her out to play," Lee said of the period after K.S. died. "Her brother is like her dad almost."
If you were touched by Kang's triumph over Brooke Henderson, you won't want to miss Beth Ann Nichols' Golfweek story that includes some great behind the scenes insights, including a note from mom, Kang's Sherwood CC fans that texted after the win, and her tight bond with Michelle Wie.
A teary-eyed Bo Wie, mother of Michelle, came over a few minutes later for a hug. Michelle Wie and Kang are so close they started a lifestyle blog together, though they’ve been lax in updating it lately. There’s certainly something worthy of writing about now.
Wie, the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open winner, said they’ve been in constant contact this week.
“If I don’t text her in six hours she sends me 50 messages,” Wie said, grinning.
In fact, they’ve formed their own book club of sorts. A restless Danielle tried to get lost in the book prior to the final round.
The final round highlights from Golf Central:
As for the other events, Kenny Perry took home the U.S. Senior Open trophy in a two-man battle with Kirk Triplett at charming Salem Country Club.
Jeff Babineau's Golfweek.com account on the incredible, record-breaking performance.
And Kevin Casey has the lowdown on Kyle Stanley's playoff win over Charles Howell at the Quicken Loans National.
As Steve DiMeglio points out from Maryland, the playoff loss for Howell was his first start in 9 weeks.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
