Epson Tour Championship – Syndication Server

Here’s why the Epson Tour Championship (which is on the move) will be more important than ever

The LPGA is saying an entire year of solid play by a golfer on the Epson Tour is great preparation.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — The Epson Tour Championship, the season-ending tournament for the LPGA’s developmental tour, won’t be played in Indian Wells, California, until October, but already there are changes happening for the event.

The city of Indian Wells agreed to host and sponsor the tournament last November, in part as a way to showcase the city-owned golf resort and in part as a way to perhaps get the LPGA to return to the desert in the coming years.

Either way, Indian Wells is getting into the women’s golf business with the event that caps the season-long chase for LPGA exemptions for aspiring players. The LPGA announced last week that the Epson event will be a little more friendly to players looking for those exemptions.

In the past, the Epson Tour Championship awarded LPGA playing cards to the top 10 players in the season-long points battle, with the Tour Championship playing a major part in that chase. But starting in October when the Epson Tour Championship moves to the Player Course at the Indian Wells Golf Resort, the top 15 golfers from the season-long chase will get LPGA cards.

“We are thrilled to announce the news of expanded access to the LPGA for Epson Tour Members at the end of the upcoming season,” said the Epson Tour’s Chief Business and Operations Officer, Jody Brothers. “We annually review the performance data of our recent graduates, and the additional access substantiates that Epson Tour athletes are arriving to the LPGA ready to perform at the highest stage.”

In other words, much like the PGA Tour several years ago, the LPGA is saying an entire year of solid play by a golfer on the Epson Tour is better preparation for a year on the LPGA that merely working your way through the stages of qualifying tournaments.

There are some complications to the additions five cards to be offering next October, with players 11 through 15 falling into a different eligibility category but the idea is still to get more players with more tournament experience for a year onto the LPGA for the 2025 season.

Indian Wells is new host

It also means that the players who come to Indian Wells in October have more to play for than golfers in the Epson Tour Championship in recent years. That, in turn, will make Indian Wells an important part of the Epson Tour and LPGA story in the fall. That’s exactly what the city is hoping for with it deal to bring the developmental tour to the desert. Make the LPGA look hard at what the city has to offer and what the city course will produce for the women’s professional tour.

Make no mistake, the city’s gamble on bringing the Epson Tour to the Coachella Valley doesn’t necessarily guarantee the LPGA will return to the desert, at least not right away. There are plenty of issues that would have to be resolved for the LPGA, including the right spot on the LPGA schedule, television on Golf Channel and other items like the purse for an event. And the LPGA might be worried that a tournament in the desert will always be compared to the old Dinah Shore major championship.

But having the Epson Tour Championship in 2024 be a bigger part of what the LPGA will look like in 2025 certainly helps the city with its future sponsorship of the event. The Epson Tour may not be the LPGA, but the Epson Tour’s biggest event with so much riding on it could get desert fans excited, and that will produce the galleries that the LPGA will be looking at for any future decision on its return to the desert.

Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan.

Epson Tour Championship is officially heading to Southern California. Will other events follow?

Officials are making no secret that they want to bring the LPGA back to the Coachella Valley at their courses.

The Epson Tour will play its biggest golf tournament at the Indian Wells Golf Resort in 2024, but officials from the City of Indian Wells and the golf resort are making no secret that they want to bring the LPGA back to the Coachella Valley at their courses.

“First, it puts us back in the game,” said Robin Graf, the new general manager at the Indian Wells Golf Resort. “It gives us an opportunity to potentially host more events in the future, and bigger events.”

The Indian Wells City Council voted 5-0 on Thursday to approve a one-year $100,000 sponsorship for the 2024 season finale of the Epson Tour, the developmental tour for the LPGA. That event, to be called the Epson Tour Championship at Indian Wells, will be played on the Players Course of the golf resort on Sept. 30-Oct. 6.

While the Epson Tour Championship becomes the biggest golf event played at the golf resort for now, city staff and council members talked openly about the prospect of an LPGA event for the city in the future. The LPGA left the desert after the 2022 Chevron Championship at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, with the major championship moving to Houston. That left the Coachella Valley without an LPGA event for the first time in 51 years.

The Epson Tour event could show the LPGA that a regular LPGA event is viable for the desert in the fall, and that the Indian Wells Golf Resort is the place to hold such a tournament.

“Let’s not lose sight of the fact that we have had a golden opportunity dropped into our laps,” council member Greg Sanders said during council discussion of the sponsorship. “The Dinah Shore, the ANA tournament, the last year it was here it was sponsored by Chevron, I think. They moved out. I’m going to ask Visit Greater Palm Springs what the economic spinoff was from the ANA. I guarantee you it is huge.”

Sanders added the idea of the Epson Tour sponsorship is to get the LPGA to see Indian Wells as a top-flight candidate for an LPGA event.

“I see this as a strategic investment,” Sanders added.

City, residents benefits

The council chose a $100,000 sponsorship over a $50,000 option for the Epson Tour event. City manager Christopher Freeland explained that the $100,000 level includes everything the $50,000 level features including the city name and logo incorporated into tournament promotion and advertising, pro-am teams in the tournament, participation in a meet the pros party and VIP passes for the four days of the 72-hole professional tournament. But the $100,000 level also includes discounted tickets for city residents and a designated seating area along the 18th green for residents. Freeland also pointed out the $100,000 sponsorship might be viewed more favorably by the LPGA for any future tournament discussions.

Indian Wells is already the home of the two-week BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden each March, the Ironman 70.3 Indian Wells-La Quinta in December and has a sponsorship deal with the Coachella Valley Firebirds hockey club. For golf, the city hosted a PGA Tour Champion event at The Vintage Club from 1981-92 and at the golf resort in 1993 as well as three years of the LG Skins Game from 2006-08.

“Golf is the epicenter of Indian Wells. It always has been since the 1980s,” council member Bruce Whitman said. “I think golf is our past, our present and our future. And so our golf resort, that campus with the hotels and the golf courses, that is the economic engine of our city. All we can do to encourage more golf in this city can only benefit this city.”

Council member Dana Reed said he supports the sponsorship deal, but would like the city staff to audit claims about the golf tournament and other sports sponsorships the city has. One such claim is the Epson Tour saying the Tour Championship will produce 1,930 room nights in area hotels, with Freeland acknowledging some of those room nights could be in other desert cities.

Freeland added that while the sponsorship voted on by the council Thursday is a one-year deal, it could lead to a multi-year agreement with the Epson Tour and deeper discussions with the LPGA about a tournament on that larger tour.

As the developmental tour for the LPGA, the Epson Tour has 24 events across the country, including one in Beaumont each March. Purses for Epson events are between $200,000 and $375,000, with the Tour Championship featuring a $250,000 purse last month in Florida.

The top 10 money winners on the tour each year earn LPGA exemptions for the following year, with the Tour Championship the final event of that exemption chase. Top players on the LPGA who have graduated from the Epson Tour include major championship winners Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu, with Epson Tour graduates winning more than 400 LPGA titles.

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Could the Epson Tour Championship be moving from Florida to California? An upcoming vote might decide

The proposal is a one-year deal, but the city and Troon might be interested in extending it.

The LPGA may have taken a major championship out of California’s Coachella Valley after 51 years, but women’s professional golf is poised to return to the desert with the biggest event on its developmental tour.

The Indian Wells city council will vote Thursday whether to spend as much as $100,000 to sponsor and host the Epson Tour Championship in the fall of 2024 at the city-owned Indian Wells Golf Resort. The Epson Tour Championship is the final event of the developmental Epson Tour’s season, with the top 10 players from the tour’s money list earning LPGA exemptions for the following year.

“After discussing funding options, the time during the year when the tournament is played, the consumption of existing tee times, and negotiated Resident Benefits, the Finance Committee recommends the Council consider the $100,000 Host City Sponsorship,” a city staff report to the city council suggests.

The event, to be played Oct. 3-6, would be the first Epson Tour event held in the desert, though the tour does play an annual tournament in March at the Morongo Golf Club at Tukwet in Beaumont. The championship has been held in Florida every year since its inception in 2008, with the lone exception of 2020, when it was played at River Run Country Club in Davidson, North Carolina.

“The chance to bring women’s golf back to the Coachella Valley and the chance to bring championship golf to the city is something that we look forward to,” said Christopher Freeland, city manager for Indian Wells who prepared the staff report. “And the idea that at the end of the week 10 players will get their LPGA cards is great.”

The LPGA has a long history in the Coachella Valley dating back to an event in 1953 at Tamarisk Country Club in Rancho Mirage. The best-known LPGA presence in the desert was the 51-year run of an event hosted by television and recording star Dinah Shore under various sponsorship names at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage. That tournament, which started in 1972 and was elevated to a major chainpionship in 1983, ended its run in the desert in 2022 as the Chevron Championship before moving to Houston for the 2023 season.

While the proposal to be voted on Thursday is a one-year deal, Freeland said be believes the city and Troon would be interested in extending the Epson Tour’s deal to play at the city’s golf resort. He added that by showcasing the resort and the Coachella Valley in October, it might be possible that a successful Epson Tour Championship could influence the LPGA to think about returning to the desert with an official LPGA event.

Alexa Pano of USA plays her shot on the third tee during the first round of the Epson Tour Championship at the Champions course at LPGA International on October 06, 2022, in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)

Resident discounts included

If approved by the city council at the $100,000 sponsorship level, the new event will be known as the Epson Tour Championship at Indian Wells. City residents would receive discounts on grounds tickets, VIP hospitality and pro-am berths, and the city would receive advertising opportunities on the live stream of the event.

“This opportunity is consistent with the City Council’s goal to increase tourism to Indian Wells and expand the City’s brand as a golfing destination,” the staff report says.

The report says if the $100,000 sponsorship level is approved, staff has $62,200 in the Golf Resort fund to be allocated for the Epson event. That would still require $37,800 in an appropriation. The council will also consider a $50,000 sponsorship opportunity, or could turn down the chance to host the event at all. Freeland sid he was optisitic about the council vote.

“I would expect some sponsorship to be approved,” Freeland said. “I don’t know if it will be the $100,000 level or the $50,000 level, but I think something will be approved.”

For its part, the LPGA is estimating more than 1,900 hotel room nights from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, a traditionally slow shoulder month period for the city, spinoff revenues at local restaurants, especially the golf resort itself. Receptions and parties, a pro-am for 150 amateurs, the LPGA card ceremony at the end of the event and an estimated $2.5 million in media exposure for the city are all part of the LPGA pledge for the event.

The Epson Tour Championship was played this year in Daytona Beach, Fla., at the LPGA International, but Freeland said the LPGA, through IWGR management company Troon, asked about moving the tournament to the IWGR. While the staff report does not say which of the two 18-hole courses at the golf resort will be played, Freeland said he has confirmed that the Players Course, renovated by John Fought from an original Ted Robinson design, will be the tournament course.

The Indian Wells Golf Resort has hosted professional events before, starting in 1993 with the Gulfstream Aerospace Invitational on the PGA Tour Champions, an event won by Raymond Floyd. The LG Skins Game was played at the resort starting in 2006 and ending in 2008 when the Skins Game itself ended. In recent years the resort has hosted the Southern California Open, an event conducted by the PGA of Southern California.

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Epson Tour pro’s epic birdie-eagle finish secures last LPGA card for 2024 season

Gillman hit a 4-hybrid from 196 yards to 5 feet and then drained the eagle putt on the 18th hole.

Kristen Gillman glanced at a leaderboard on the 16th green at the Epson Tour Championship and knew that she needed to make something happen. She promptly hit an aggressive 6-iron on the par-3 17th to 8 feet and made the birdie putt. On the par-5 18th, she hit a 4-hybrid from 196 yards to 5 feet and drained the eagle putt.

The birdie-eagle finish secured the 10th and final LPGA card for 26-year-old Gillman, who shot 64 in the final round at the LPGA International Jones Course in Daytona Beach, Florida.

“I feel like it hasn’t really sunk in,” said Gillman, who was back at the course Monday for a pro-am. “I’ve been on the outside looking in all season.”

A two-time U.S. Women’s Amateur champion (2014 and 2018), Gillman came into the final event of the Epson Tour season No. 13 on the money list. The top 10 earn full LPGA status for 2024.

Gillman’s $12,177 payday gave her $95,701 in season earnings, which comes out to $1,700 ahead of Becca Huffer, who finished 11th.

Gillman was one of two players who played their way into the top 10 in Daytona. Auston Kim surged from 15th to third on the money list by winning the Epson Tour Championship with back-to-back rounds of 65.

Kristen Gillman celebrates with the Robert Cox Trophy after winning the U.S. Women's Amateur. (Steven Gibbons/USGA) — Kristen Gillman celebrates with the Robert Cox Trophy after winning the U.S. Women’s Amateur. (Steven Gibbons/USGA)

It wasn’t that long ago that Gillman, an Alabama grad, was one of the best amateurs in the country. She first earned her LPGA card at the inaugural 2018 LPGA Q-Series with a T-13 finish. In her rookie season on the LPGA, Gillman qualified for the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship and finished 43rd on the money list with $492,466.

The high didn’t last, however, as Gillman, currently 455th in the Rolex Rankings, found herself playing a full schedule on the Epson Tour in 2023 trying to make her way back to the LPGA. Gillman said confidence was the main ingredient she lacked in recent years. She felt like she was hitting it well enough, but couldn’t score.

“A lot of it is whatever you make it to be,” said Gillman of tour life. “You can make it seem a lot harder than it actually is. The more you’re out there, it’s easier to get in your head.”

At the Epson Tour Championship, Gillman said she only missed three greens in 72 holes and says her ball-striking is back where it was when she was among the best amateurs in the world and a strong LPGA rookie.

About 18 months ago, she went back to work with swing coach Justin Poynter, and while she had her boyfriend, mini-tour player Trevor Bailey, on her bag in Daytona, Gillman used a push cart for most of the season, grinding it out on her own.

The Texan felt her confidence finally start to shift after a runner-up showing in August at the French Lick Resort Charity Classic. She’d go on to finish the season with six consecutive top-15 finishes. She placed in the top 4 in her last three starts.

“If anything I’m better just mentally,” said Gillman of her form heading back to the LPGA.

“You learn a lot playing professional golf. I’m excited to get out there again and put in play what I’ve learned.”

Meet the graduates: These 10 Epson Tour players earned LPGA cards for 2024

Auston Kim vaults into top 10 to earn 2024 LPGA card after winning 2023 Epson Tour Championship.

Auston Kim needed some fireworks at the Epson Tour Championship to secure an LPGA card for 2024. She shot 7-under 29 on the front nine to get the sparks flying, and then made birdie on the final hole to win by two and vault into the top 10 on the money list.

“We talked all year about if we do the right things, if I create good habits, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” said Kim, who entered the week No. 15 on the money list and ended it No. 3.

When the Tour Championship kicked off Thursday, three players had already clinched their LPGA cards for 2024: Gabriela Ruffels, Natasha Andrea Oon and Jiwon Jeon.

When the dust settled in Daytona Beach, Florida, eight of the 10 players who entered the week in the top 10 maintained their spots. Becca Huffer (No. 9) and Jenny Bae (No. 10) were the two who dropped out.

Huffer ultimately finished 11th on the money list, with $1,700 less than Kristen Gillman. The 33-year-old Huffer tied for 12th at the Tour Championship and closed with a 65.

A total of nine players broke the $100,000 mark in season earnings, five more than any other year in the developmental tour’s history.

Find out more about the card winners for the 2023 Epson Tour season:

Tight race for LPGA cards ends this week with Epson Tour Championship

Seven players have already broken the $100,000 mark in season earnings, three more than any other year.

The Epson Tour Championship kicks off on Thursday, and 10 LPGA cards will be given out by week’s end. Three players have already clinched their LPGA cards for 2024: Gabriela Ruffels, Natasha Andrea Oon and Jiwon Jeon.

A total of seven players have already broken the $100,000 mark in season earnings, three more than any other year in the developmental tour’s history.

Madelene Sagstrom set the all-time Epson Tour money record of $167,064 in just 15 events. Ruffels is currently $10,781 shy of that record. Ruffels would need to finish in the top 3 to break the record while Oon ($147,780) would need to win.

Gabriela Ruffels of Australia watches her tee shot on the 13th tee during the second round of the Kroger Queen City Championship presented by P&G at Kenwood Country Club on September 08, 2023, in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

A total of 108 players will compete at LPGA International for a $250,000 purse. The low 60 players and ties will advance after 36 holes.

The Race for the Card (top 10 on the money list) couldn’t be any tighter. Currently, players ranked No. 4-30 on the money list have a chance to secure their cards. Only $274 separates No. 10 Jenny Bae from No. 11 Robyn Choi.

Bae, of course, lost in a playoff to Rose Zhang at this year’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur and turned professional not long after. She has only played in 10 events so far on the Epson Tour this season and won twice.

Here’s the current top 10:

Gabriela Ruffels $156,283
Natasha Andrea Oon $147,780
Jiwon Jeon $114,219
Agathe Laisne $109,060
Jenny Coleman $104,958
Roberta Liti $102,734
Minji Kang $100,165
Isabella Fierro $97,504
Becca Huffer $89,390
Jenny Bae $88,889

Listed below are the projections of what players ranked Nos. 11-30 on the money list must do to jump into the top 10 and earn their cards: (Note: Ties are not factored in.)