Was it really the conflict with the Augusta National Women’s Amateur that brought about the end? Or was it the galleries that seemed to get a little smaller each year? Or was it the lack of an immediately recognizable title sponsor?
Or maybe it was just the march of time that will see the LPGA’s first major championship of the year be played for the final time in the Coachella Valley next April. An event that seemed woven into the fabric of the desert, the newly christened Chevron Championship will be ripped out of Southern California and transplanted to a yet-to-be-named course in the Houston area for 2023.
New dates later in the spring, a shiny new sponsor in Chevron, a huge jump in the purse and even the promise of network television times await the tournament in Texas. What will be left behind will be history, tradition, a great golf course and memories, things that don’t resonate all that much in the modern world of sports.
Make no mistake, the tournament most recently known as the ANA Inspiration had its problems, not the least of which was the looming loss of All Nippon Airways as a sponsor after 2022. As an international airline, ANA was hemorrhaging money like all airlines in the pandemic era, and no fans at Mission Hills the last two years because of COVID-19 didn’t help the event or its sponsor.
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The conflict with the Augusta National Women’s Amateur was a bigger problem than the LPGA or tournament officials first believed. Augusta National, home of the Masters, is the 800-pound gorilla of golf, and the minute the Georgia club announced the ANWA for dates that conflicted with the LPGA major, smart people in golf knew a date change for the LPGA would be necessary. Augusta National could hold a cornhole tournament and people would watch.
LPGA losing history, tradition, a great course
Crowds that seemed smaller and smaller each year also were a problem. After the LPGA brought ANA to the event, saving the tournament for 2015, a high-ranking LPGA official looked at the sparse crowds during the third round of the tournament and wondered if desert fans understood how hard then-commissioner Mike Whan had worked to keep the tournament in the desert.
It was a well-known secret through much of 2014 that when Kraft walked away from the event that year, several sponsors wanted to take over, but only if they could move it from Rancho Mirage to the east coast or Texas or other far-flung locations. The lure of Poppie’s Pond, the players’ love of the Dinah Shore Tournament Course and a colorful history inspired the LPGA to keep the event in the desert with a sponsor from Japan.
That will all come to an end on April 3, the final scheduled round for the old Dinah Shore tournament in the desert.
Yes, the ANWA hurt the desert major, and so did small crowds in the relatively small market of the Coachella Valley. The number of times someone called the tournament “the ANNA” alone might have driven the LPGA out of the desert.
In the end, the tournament is moving because a powerful sponsor that the LPGA needs and covets is putting up big money and will get the tournament in a better location, with better television exposure and a date away from the ANWA. The greater Houston area will provide larger crowds, and current and future players will grow less and less attached to the old days in the desert. Honestly, how many players on the global LPGA have a true grasp of who Dinah Shore was?
So it could be a bigger and better tournament. But it won’t be the same. It can’t be the same. The LPGA and Chevron can find a great golf course, dig a new lake next to the 18th green and even move the statue of Dinah Shore away from Mission Hills Country Club, and it won’t be the same.
No one in Houston will be able to say, hey, that’s where Mickey Wright won her last LPGA event, or that’s where Karrie Webb holed that unforgettable wedge, or that’s where Betsy King holed that crucial bunker shot. They won’t be able to say Houston is where Annika Sorenstam won three times, where a fiesta broke out when Lorena Ochoa won or where Inbee Park and Pernilla Lindberg played an epic eight-hole, two-day playoff. And they won’t say Houston is where Amy Alcott started a winner’s tradition of jumping into Poppie’s Pond, pretty much the only LPGA highlight guaranteed to make SportsCenter year after year.
Some fans will be disappointed by the news of the end of the LPGA in the desert. Others will be heartbroken and shed some tears. A few, even some at Mission Hills Country Club, will shrug their shoulders and move on. But knowing the 2022 Chevron Championship will be the 51st and last time the event is played in the desert will feel like the loss of an old friend. And that’s a feeling that will stick around for a while.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for the Palm Springs Desert Sun, he can be reached at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4633. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_Bohannan.
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