Earlier this season a number of senior LPGA Tour officials attended a staff retreat, where one of the topics was scheduling – as in, in a perfect world, what would the circuit look like in terms of travel, flow and desired locations.
The consensus was that in an ideal scenario, Denver would be part of the mix – the only question was, when would it happen? The answer apparently is some time within the next two to three years and as early as next season.
“Denver is a great supporter of golf, especially women’s golf, as we saw at the U.S. Open at Cherry Hills two years ago,” LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens said recently. “That’s one of the communities we really want to get back to. We just have to have the right course at the right time of year with the right opening on our schedule.
“The planets have to align, but we’re talking with people and we would love to get there. We’d love to get there as early as ’08.”
Kevin Laura isn’t an astronomer or NASA scientist, but he would certainly like to help bring Bivens’ vision to fruition. A former official with The International, Laura, who is president of the Colorado Golf Association, is working to bring back professional tournament golf to the state.
“Seeing the demise of The International wasn’t at all satisfying; since then I’ve been pretty motivated to get something done,” Laura said Wednesday.
Currently working out of the offices of the Colorado Open, Laura and Pat Hamill, that event’s chairman, have been putting together an endowment group with the intent of securing an event. From a cost and availability standpoint, Laura said, the LPGA would be the most logical target.
“We’ve sent Commissioner Bivens a letter stating our intentions,” he said. “We know they have holes to fill on their schedule. If we get the LPGA before the PGA, great. If we got two events, even better.”
When The International folded in February, Laura made a play to try to bring the LPGA to Colorado this summer, in the same early July dates that had been vacated by the men. Despite the obvious time crunch, he said he came close to pulling it off, to the point where the women committed to a number of incentives that Laura said would carry over into the future.
One was the inclusion of the event in the series of LPGA tournaments televised on ESPN; another was that the tournament’s winner would get an automatic invitation into the tour’s year-end ADT Championship. Normally, those only go to the winners of events with a minimum $2 million purse; Laura said the Colorado event would likely have had a $1.5 million purse.
In his vision for a women’s event, Laura cites another tournament that has quickly become an LPGA mainstay, the Michelob Ultra Open. There are similarities to Denver in that the Michelob, which will be played next week in Williamsburg, Va., also once hosted a PGA Tour event. When the Michelob Championship folded in 2002, the LPGA arrived the following season and has been a huge success, in part because the community readily embraced the event.
Laura, a former tournament director on the Champions and LPGA tours, thinks the same thing would happen in Denver. Many of the corporate entities who had a presence at The International would be willing to transfer to the new event, he said, although he admits that given budgetary considerations and fiscal planning, it might take more work to gain business commitments in future years.
Had Laura been able to bring the LPGA to town this summer, the likely location would have been Inverness Golf Club in Englewood. Where it might end up when the time comes is open to discussion, he said.
“I’m not married to any particular site but you have to make it convenient,” he said. “Cherry Hills is Cherry Hills, but one reason why the Women’s Open was so successful is because it was in town and people could get to it. They didn’t have to make plans for days and weeks in advance to get there.”
Staff writer Anthony Cottoncan be reached at 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
SPOTLIGHT: Michael Jordan & Tiger Woods
Playing hooky
Taking a little time off from the rigors of trying to make the Charlotte Bobcats a relevant factor in the NBA, Michael Jordan played some golf Wednesday morning with a friend, Tiger Woods. According to Woods, being with Jordan is like hanging out with an older brother. “It’s been great to have him be a part of my life, but we had a great time today. We always have a great time,” Woods told reporters in Charlotte, N.C., following their round. The two also played a pro-am together at the Wachovia Championship. “I think that we can relate, you know? There’s so many different levels that not too many people have, I guess, have gone through the same things we’ve had to go through. He actually did it first. So because of that, I was able to kind of basically share and pick up all the knowledge that he’s accumulated over the years.” While Woods was quick to point out that betting isn’t allowed on the PGA Tour, he admitted competition is never far when he and Jordan are together.
“Whether it’s playing golf or playing cards or just hanging out, whatever it is, we’re always having a great time, always needling each other,” he said. “There’s always a wager of some sort on anything we do because we always want to one-up one another, and that’s the nature of how we are, and I think that’s also one of the reasons why we’ve been able to accomplish the things that we’ve been able to accomplish.”
Truth in advertising
“No, he’s gotten worse, actually.”
Tiger Woods, when asked if Michael Jordan’s golf game had improved through the years
THIS WEEK:
PGA Tour
Wachovia Championship, Quail Hollow Club, Charlotte, N.C.
What’s up: Tiger Woods returns to action and 29 of the world’s top 30 players are in the field one week before the Players Championship.
LPGA Tour
SemGroup Championship, Cedar Ridge Country Club, Broken Arrow, Okla.
What’s up: Cristie Kerr shot a 61 in the third round en route to a one-stroke victory over Annika Sorenstam a year ago.
Champions Tour
FedEx Kinko’s Classic, The Hills Country Club, Austin, Texas.
What’s up: Jay Haas hopes to successfully defend a championship for the second straight week.
Staying power
Tiger Woods was just a 10-year-old cub when the first official World Golf Rankings were released in April of 1986. A number of players have endured through the years, with their rank then and today’s rank listed:
Player 1986 Today
Bernhard Langer 1 158
Corey Pavin 8 113
Fred Couples 42 117
Joey Sindelar 53 276
