TONY'S LPGA REPORT

Commissioner Michael Whan announced today the 2017 LPGA schedule.

Here are the highlights:

There will be four new tournaments (two domestic, two international)Three tournaments have been dropped from the schedule (all domestic)Match Play will once again be part of the LPGA Schedule.The schedule will have 34 official tournaments plus the Solheim Cup.It will have a record $67.35 million in official prize money, with eleven of the official thirty tournaments that are returning having larger purses than in 2016.The U.S. Open will have a purse of $5 million dollars, largest in LPGA history.The first new LPGA stop debuts when the Tour visits Oneida, Wisconsin July 6-9 for the Thornberry Creek LPGA Classic.
The second new event takes place three weeks later, when the LPGA travels across the pond to play the Aberdeen Asset Management Ladies Scottish Open, July 27-30 at Dundonald Links in Ayrshire, Scotland.

In September, the Tour makes a pit stop in Indianapolis, Indiana for a $2 million purse …

The Final Stage of the LPGA Qualifying Tournament will be held Wednesday November 30 through Sunday December 4 at LPGA International - Jones & Hills Courses, Daytona, Florida.

Players will rotate between the Jones and Hills courses over the first 4 days. 

There will be a 72 hole cut made after Saturday's round to the top 70 and ties.

Sunday's final round will be played on the Hills course.

Players who finish in the top 20 will earn category 12 Priority List membership. This means that they will get to play in all full field LPGA tournaments. Players finishing 21-45 will get category 17 membership, which amounts to conditional playing privileges. The players in category 17 usually do not get into many LPGA events and will probably spend most of the 2017 season playing in Symetra Tour events. Su Oh and Brittany Altomare were the only category 17 players who managed to retain their full time playing priviledges because of their play on the LPGA tour during the 2016 season.




There w…

Let me start by saying that 2016 was not a very good year for LPGA rookies. Only 6 of the 29 rookies finished in the top 100 on the 2016 money list. Three more will be retaining their cards because of their stellar Symetra Tour play. The other twenty players are all going back to Q-School next week. This was a dramatic decrease from 2015 when we had a spectacular rookie crop, but also down substantially from 2014.

2016 -  9 of 29  = 23.1%2015 - 19 of 33 = 57.6%2014 - 13 of 28 = 46.4%

Below are my ratings for all 2016 LPGA rookies. These ratings are strictly based on how they fared on the LPGA tour this season. Any successes or failures on other tours, excluding the Symetra Tour, are not considered here. Success in retaining their 2017 LPGA playing card was my determining factor for my final ratings.


The Best:
1- In Gee Chun- Winning the Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year Award could not have been any easier. She did it easily in spite of missing several tournaments early in the year due to i…

First let me congratulate Charley Hull for winning the CME Group Championship. She carded a final round 66 to best runner-up So Yeon Ryu by 2 strokes. It was the first LPGA victory of Charley's career.

That wasn't the whole story of the weekend though as three big season ending awards were decided:

Ariya Jutanugarn won the player of the year award and therefore receives a Hall of Fame point.In Gee Chun won the Vare trophy (lowest average score per round) an also receives a Hall of Fame point. Earlier this month she also won The Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year award.Ariya Jutanugarn wins the Race to The CME Globe, and wins the 1 million dollar bonus. Lydia Ko (who was shut out of the season ending awards) finished 2nd and wins a bonus of $150,000. Brooke Henderson finished third and earned a $100,000 bonus.

We have come to the close of the 2016 LPGA season. In my opinion, it was in many ways one of  the most exciting seasons ever. Every week we were treated to exciting and compe…

The LPGA announced today another addition to the 2017 schedule.




The Aberdeen Asset Management Ladies Scottish Open will be a co-sanctioned event, putting back to back weeks in Scotland in 2017. The Ladies Scottish Open will be played July 27-30 at Dundonald Links, followed by the Ricoh Women's British Open at Kingsbarns in St. Andrews the following week.




The Scottish Open will feature a split field of LPGA and LET players. It will have a 156 player field. It will have a purse of $1,500,000. The event will be televised by both Golf Channel and Sky Sports.

This marks the fourth new tournament that will be added to the 2017 schedule. Tournaments in Green Bay Wisconsin, Indianapolis, Indiana, and New Zealand had been previously announced. It has been widely rumored that the Coates Championship will not be on next year's schedule.

The tour will not be announcing its 2017 schedule for another week or so as several details still need to be worked out.


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One of the longest running caddie/ player relationships has come to an end.

Paula Creamer's longtime caddie, Colin Cann, will carry her bag for the final time in this week's CME Tour Championship.



“Colin and I have had a great 12 years together, but it was just time for a change for both of us,” Creamer said after her pro-am round Wednesday. “It’s a mutual decision.”

Colin is the only full time caddie that Paula has ever had. He has carried her bag since she entered the tour as a rookie in 2005.

“Of course, it will be emotional,” Creamer said of their last event together. “We’ve had a very close relationship. It will be hard.”




Cann will take over as Korean star Sung Hyun Park’s caddie next year. Park is the top player on the KLPGA this year having won seven times. She will be joining the LPGA tour as a rookie in 2017, and qualifies for all full field events.







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The LPGA announced today an addition to  its 2017 schedule. 

The LPGA Tour is headed to New Zealand next year for the MCKAYSON New Zealand Women’s Open. The event is set to take place September 28-October 1, 2017 at the Windross Farm Golf Course in Auckland and will lead into the LPGA’s fall Asia swing.




The MCKAYSON New Zealand Women’s Open, which will boast a $1.3 million purse, will mark the first LPGA or PGA TOUR event to take place in New Zealand.

MCKAYSON is a newly launched global brand offering high quality sportswear created using its own unique design team, a high level of technology and powerful sourcing capability throughout the world.

The announcement today is the culmination of a two-year vision to attract one of the world’s biggest women’s sporting organizations to New Zealand.

Tickets will go on sale early next year, with more details to be released in the coming weeks.

The LPGA should be announcing its entire 2017 schedule any day now.



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Congratulations go out once again to Carlota Ciganda for winning the Lorena Ochoa Invitational. Her four round total of 275 was 2 shots better than 5 other players. It was Ciganda's second victory in the last 5 weeks.

This week the LPGA moves to the state of Florida for the playing of the CME Group Tour Championship. This is the final tournament on the 2016 schedule. Last year's exciting finish saw Cristie Kerr shoot a final round 68, which was good enough to finish one stroke better than both Gerina Piller and Ha Na Jang. In spite of Lydia Ko finishing in 7th place, it was good enough for her to win the "Race to the CME Globe" bonus of 1 million dollars.





This will be tournament #33 of 33 on this year's LPGA schedule.
Here are the key details: Course:  Tiburon Golf Club Location:  Naples, Florida Defending Champion:  Cristie Kerr Winning Score:  68-69-66-68 = 271 (-17)
Final Field:  72 players (the field list is just showing 68) Par:  36/36 = 72 Yardage:  6,540 Purse:  $2,0…