Jane Blalock won the first one, a glamorous 54-hole event that transformed the LPGA. Her prize: $20,050.
This week’s purse of $5 million is up 60 percent over last year. The winner will receive $750,000. The player finishing around 46th this week will earn a paycheck that’s similar to what Blalock earned all those years ago.
It’s not all about the money, of course, but with the U.S. Women’s Open moving to a $10 million purse, Chevron’s elevation of this event matters.
Here’s a closer look back on that starry first field:
Name
Position
Score
Money
Jane Blalock
1
213
$20,050
Carol Mann
T-2
216
$11,550
Judy Rankin
T-2
216
$11,550
Jo Ann Prentice
4
217
$6,550
Sandra Haynie
T-5
218
$4,500
Mickey Wright
T-5
218
$4,500
Kathy Whitworth
T-7
218
$4,500
Pam Higgins
T-7
219
$3,200
Sandra Palmer
T-9
221
$2,500
Pam Barnett
T-9
221
$2,500
Gloria Ehret
T-11
222
$2,000
Betsy Cullen
T-11
222
$2,000
Kathy Cornelius
T-13
223
$1,700
Clifford Creed
T-13
223
$1,700
Marlene Hagge
T-13
223
$1,700
Louise Suggs
T-13
223
$1,700
Jan Ferraris
T-17
225
$1,475
JoAnne Carner
T-17
225
$1,475
Marilynn Smith
T-19
226
$1,350
Murle Breer
T-19
226
$1,350
Kathy Ahern
T-19
226
$1,350
Beth Stone
T-22
227
$1,200
Cynthia Sullivan
T-22
227
$1,200
Sandra Elliott
T-22
227
$1,200
Peggy Wilson
T-25
228
$1,075
Margie Masters
T-25
228
$1,075
Donna Young
T-27
229
$925
Mary Mills
T-27
229
$925
Ruth Jessen
T-27
229
$925
Althea Darben
T-27
229
$925
Betsy Rawls
T-31
230
$775
Kathy Farrer
T-31
230
$775
Gerda Boykin
T-31
230
$775
Sue Berning
34
231
$725
Judy Kimball
35
232
$700
Barbara Romack
T-36
233
$662.50
DeDe Owens
T-36
233
$662.50
Sandra Spuzich
38
234
$625
Lesley Holbert
39
236
$600
Patty Berg
40
237
$575
Here’s how much money each player will make this year.
It was a year that saw the LPGA go through some big changes.
The LPGA season ended last weekend in Naples, Fla., with the final round of the CME Group Tour Championship, a spirited day with some of the game’s best players fighting for a win and a variety of season-long awards in the women’s game.
It was a year that saw the LPGA go through some big changes, and also a year that saw the tour try to get back to what it was in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic started to take a huge toll on the women’s game with tournament cancellations.
Here are five of the biggest stories from the women’s tour in 2021:
“In some ways, it will be mourning a loss, but in other ways having a sponsor like Chevron who has really been committed will be great,” said Alcott, who won the major championship three times and started the tradition of the winner jumping into the lake at Mission Hills Country Club after her 1988 victory.
Sadness for the Coachella Valley but an understanding that the tournament might be bigger and better in a new location and with sponsorship from Chevron seemed to be the overwhelming reaction to Tuesday’s announcement that the tournament once hosted by Dinah Shore will relocate to Houston in 2023.
“I have a deep love for the event, “said Gabe Codding, the director of marketing for the City of Rancho Mirage who starting working seasonally at the LPGA event in 1996 and worked up to tournament director from 2008 to 2017. “So to see, to know that the event can go to where it started from (in status) and get back to where it needed to be is an incredible feeling. And then absolutely gutted that it is leaving our destination and Poppie’s Pond and Mission Hills. So it’s very conflicting and very hard to process for me personally.”
While he was tournament director, Codding helped with the sponsorship transition from Nabisco to Kraft and then from Kraft to All Nippon Airways. He said the event coordinator side of him understands the need for the LPGA to move the event.
“It’s a North American, U.S. based company,” Codding said of Chevron. “It’s a dream come true.”
Nicole Castrale has two connections with the Rancho Mirage tournament. She first saw the event when she was 15 years old and a top golfer at Palm Desert High School, with her coach and local golf professional Vern Frazer telling her this tournament was what they were working for. Castrale did make it to the LPGA and played in the major championship eight times starting in 2007.
“That was my goal, playing in it, especially it being in my hometown, being that young,” Castrale said Tuesday while on a trip to Greece. “Seeing Juli Inkster, she was a role model to me, and now we are friends. So all through high school and college, I wanted to play in the event in my backyard.”
Castrale was a winner on the LPGA and played on two Solheim Cup teams, but she never won a major before back issues forced her off the tour. She sees the move of the tournament as both good and bad for the LPGA.
“It is a tough spot, because there are the players who are going to be saddened with history coming to an end, but on the flip side, this is their job, and in a small way this is a little promotion,” said Castrale, who now works in real estate at Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells. “They have a sponsor who appears to be completely backing them and giving them the opportunity that they may not have if they couldn’t find another sponsor.”
Introducing Castrale and every other player on the first tee of the Dinah Shore Tournament Course for the last 22 years has been desert radio personality Rich Gilgallon, who was surprised by the news Tuesday.
“I’m devastated for the community and for the club, and I’m personally devastated,” Gilgallon said.
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Gilgallon said he has become friends on the first tee with many players, from Joanne Carner in his first year to Pat Bradley, who shares a New England background with Gillgallon, to Annika Sorenstam, who always wanted to know what was on the card Gilgallon was about to read introducing her.
“I count it as one of the great blessings of my life, really,” he said.
He added that the tournament has still been about original hostess Dinah Shore in recent years.
“I realize it wasn’t called the Dinah Shore, but it was played on Dinah Shore Avenue on the Dinah Shore Course,” he said. “I am sad for that as well, that the legacy didn’t weigh a little more heavily with the sponsor.”
Alcott said the idea that a multibillion dollar company like Chevron sponsoring an LPGA event shows how the LPGA has changed in recent years.
“I remember hearing the adage that women’s golf is sold, and men’s golf is bought,” Alcott said. “And now I think we are getting into a place where women’s golf, because it is exciting, it is global, women’s golf is being bought. People are seeing the value of it.”
As a member at Mission Hills, Alcott said she still senses support for the event locally.
“I sense the members really do want it. Everything changes, but I do sense the members do want it,” Alcott said. “I see the condition of the course, it is in really good shape during the event. I haven’t noticed a change. I have noticed the continued enthusiasm for the event.
“So I think that would be very hard for some people and maybe there will be members who will say great, it’s great to have our course back in April,” she added. “It will run the gambit.”
The financial woes of All Nippon Airways also were a contributing factor in the tournament moving after next year, Codding said. As an international airline, ANA has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and has seen revenues dry up.
“You look at poor ANA with a global pandemic. When we were in negotiation for their second renewal of the contract (a three-year extension through 2022), that was the one thing they were worried about, something semi-catastrophic that just deeply impacts their business and having that much liability, long-term liability,” Codding said.
Castrale said it will be difficult to consider the Chevron Championship as the logical extension of what was once the Colgate Dinah Shore Winner’s Circle.
“The major that we have known and the major that I strived to play in when I was 15 and wanted to have the opportunity to play in, that goal of mine, is not the same,” Castrale said. “But Chevron has now created an opportunity for the next generation to create new memories.”
Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer, he can be reached at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4633. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_Bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.
The new Chevron Championship purse will increase by 60 percent in 2022 to $5 million, putting it in line with the rest of the LPGA’s majors. The ANA Inspiration’s 2021 purse of $3.1 million is only $100,000 more than this week’s Cognizant Founders Cup.
Is the money worth it?
In short: Yes.
Because it’s not just about the money. The move to a later date in the spring guarantees network television coverage, which should be at the top of the priority list for all big events on the LPGA’s calendar. Does tradition really matter if not enough people see it?
There were a number of hurdles in moving the event’s dates away from the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and keeping it at Mission Hills, including the club’s flexibility, Coachella, desert heat, a dwindling volunteer base and the need for a week with an available 28 hours of live television.
LPGA commissioner Mike Whan was asked about the future of the ANA, which had one year left on its contract, during a press conference at this year’s event.
“You hate to lose tradition,” said Whan, “but as I always tell people, respect history, love history, don’t be afraid to make a little along the way. If you can make a new history that’s better, have at it, but this one to be tough to achieve that, I’ll be the first to admit.”
Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California, home of the ANA Inspiration. (Photo: Beth Ann Nichols/Golfweek)
Before anyone gives too much credit – good or bad – to new commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan, this move was in the works well before the former Princeton athletic director got to her post.
And rumors of the event moving out of Rancho Mirage, California, have been swirling for a long time. Those who have been on the ground at Mission Hills for years can attest to the fact that the event had lost some of its buzz, even before Augusta National stole so much of the spotlight.
For many, there’s a deep emotional attachment to Mission Hills. It’s the kind of place that fills the soul just stepping on property. A bucket-list event for fans and a favorite among the players.
It’s going to be sad to leave. And yes, it’s gut-wrenching to walk away from 50 years of tradition.
Which is why it’s so important that everyone gets one last hurrah in the desert. One final leap into Poppie’s Pond. Wouldn’t it be special if past champions like Lorena Ochoa, Karrie Webb, Juli Inkster and Annika Sorenstam came back to play? Like the Masters, former champions have a place in the field. At the very least an exhibition seems in order.
Before the pandemic, there was an annual champions dinner early in the week. No doubt that will return in 2022.
What traditions carry on beyond Mission Hills depends in part on which course they go to. Is there already a pond on the 18th and room for a small pool? (Serious question!) Perhaps that statue of Dinah should be replicated.
It’s important to remember that the LPGA is only as good as its majors.
On Mike Whan’s second day on the job as LPGA commissioner, he traveled to the desert to meet with officials from Kraft. They walked the back nine at the Dinah Shore course and had lunch overlooking the 18th green. While walking out to his car, Whan got the news that Kraft was out after three more years. His first meeting with a sponsor was, in fact, a goodbye.
“The British Open was going through a pretty difficult time in terms of sponsor renewal,” said Whan in recalling the story. “I remember thinking at the time I might be in the job a year, and we’ll be down to one major.”
While many referred to the Dinah Shore as the LPGA’s Masters because it stayed in one place, held great traditions and had white caddie jumpsuits, the fact that Whan considered signing ANA to be his greatest day on the job as commissioner says it all: There were no guarantees.
It’s a new era for the majors, of course, thanks to the backing of the R&A and the PGA of America – and a renewed zest from the USGA – major championship purses are growing and venues are vastly improving.
Speaking of venues, there’s no doubt that the new course that’s chosen for The Chevron needs to be a home run. Players must view it as a major-caliber test, a place they look forward to coming to each year. All the bells and whistles in the world can’t make up for a mediocre golf course.
But just think about “The Chevron” for a minute. It’s a title that has gravitas. It’s a brand everyone in America is familiar with, not to mention around the world. (After seven years of title sponsorship, people still refer to the ANA as “The Anna.”)
View of the 18th green on Wednesday at the 2012 Kraft Nabisco Championship.
Hopefully it’s the kind of blue-chip sponsor that makes other Fortune 100 companies look to the LPGA as a potential partner.
Because that’s what this is really about – progress. The greatest tradition of the LPGA – more than leaps and robes and celebrities – is that it weathers storms and comes out stronger.
Chevron has the deep pockets, commitment and vision that it takes to build on what David Foster and Dinah Shore started more than 50 years ago.
The LPGA and IMG will Chevron as the event’s new title sponsor, Golfweek has learned, signing a six-year contract with the global giant.
For a tour that was founded in 1950, the LPGA doesn’t have many traditions. Longevity is a precious commodity in the women’s game, even when it comes to major championships. Which is why word that the ANA Inspiration is getting a facelift – new name, new location, new purse – is blockbuster news.
The LPGA and IMG are set to announce Chevron as the event’s new title sponsor, Golfweek has learned, signing a six-year contract with the global giant.
“This partnership elevates us to a whole different level,” LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan told Golfweek.
The Chevron Championship will stay at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills for 2022 in its traditional spot ahead of the Masters, and ANA will stay on as a partner for next year. The purse will increase 60 percent from $3.1 million to $5 million, putting it now ahead of the $4.5 million purses both the Amundi Evian Championship and KPMG Women’s PGA awarded in 2021.
After 2022, however, several more significant changes are in store.
The event will move away from Mission Hills, its only home since the event’s founding. The tour is looking to potentially relocate the tournament to the greater Houston area, home to roughly 8,000 Chevron employees and contractors.
There are also plans in place to move the tournament dates to later in the spring in 2023, allowing the event to be shown on NBC. The LPGA’s first major has been shown solely on Golf Channel in recent years. The current dates have also conflicted with the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, which airs its final round on NBC.
The ANA Inspiration celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021, though fans weren’t allowed on property for a second straight year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2022 edition is set to take place March 31-April 3, giving players one more chance to take a final leap into Poppie’s Pond.
President Gerald Ford, actress Dinah Shore, golfer Judy Rankin and Colgate-Palmolive president David Foster at the Colgate Dinah-Shore Winners Circle tournament, which was held in the late 1970s at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California. (Photo: Desert Sun)
Colgate-Palmolive CEO David Foster created the event in 1972 and tabbed Dinah Shore as hostess on the new Mission Hills course. It was a marquee tournament from the start. The first purse at the Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner’s Circle was $110,000, at a time when the average purse on tour was roughly $30,000.
“It took the LPGA from being great women playing golf to celebrity status,” Jane Black, winner of the first Dinah, once told Golfweek.
Even though Dinah Shore was officially dropped from the event’s title in 2000, many still unofficially refer to the event as “The Dinah.” Amy Alcott became the first to leap into the pond on the 18th in 1988 to celebrate her second victory at Mission Hills.
While the future of traditions like the champion’s leap is unknown at this point, Ed McEnroe, senior vice president of golf events at IMG, said finding ways to honor the tournament’s history going forward remains a priority in this new era. To that end, the tournament will have a special Player Advisory Board to help shape what comes next.
“We have such a responsibility with this event,” he said.
This marks Chevron’s first big sponsorship with a women’s sports league. Al Williams, vice president of corporate affairs at Chevron, said the global nature of the LPGA and shared core values made the partnership a natural fit.
Lexi Thompson interacts with fans at the ANA Inspiration.
For Lexi Thompson, the 2014 ANA champion, taking a leap into Poppie’s Pond with her family has been the highlight of her career. It’s a venue players have looked forward to for decades.
LPGA rookie Patty Tavatanakit went wire-to-wire to win the 2021 edition in thrilling fashion over 2016 ANA champion Lydia Ko, who closed with a 62.
“The views are great, and as we said, the history, too,” said World No. 1 Nelly Korda last spring. “I’ve always said, it’s kind of like the Masters for us in women’s golf, so it’s definitely something you as a professional golfer, you want to win.”
All Nippon Airways, Japan’s largest airline, had been the title sponsor since 2015. ANA staged two majors in the span of seven months during a global pandemic that crippled the travel industry.
Former LPGA commissioner Mike Whan once said that signing a contract with ANA to replace Kraft Nabisco as title sponsor was his best day on the job. Securing and elevating the events that form the cornerstones of the LPGA is an ongoing priority for every commissioner.
“If you go back to why David (Foster) and Dinah (Shore) founded this event, they really wanted to have a platform to advance women’s excellence,” said Chevron’s Williams. “That’s something that we look forward to continuing to collaborate with the tour, with the players and really advancing women’s excellence.
“It’s amazing, you fast forward 50 years and our work is not done.”
