These days, matching the faces with the names on the LPGA Tour requires a true love of the game.
Only six years ago, young Americans Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel and Michelle Wie brought a freshness to the women’s professional tour and a promise of American dominance that would put the women front and center on TVs around the world.
The fans crowding around the 18th at Ko Olina Golf Club in the 2006 Fields Open as Wie and Pressel walked up that final fairway gave you the feeling the LPGA was turning a corner, despite the impending retirement of legendary champ Annika Sorenstam.
On the Asian side of the Pacific, South Korea was cutting loose its own brand of femme fatales that continues to shape the tour today. Japan and Taiwan also jumped into the mix, adding to the excitement of what may lie ahead in the women’s game.
And then the Great Recession came and took many of the sponsors away. Popular world No. 1 Lorena Ochoa exited the cart barn to start a family. The USA side of the equation didn’t match up to the Asian influence, leaving too many anonymous fields in the eyes of most American fans. Those developments forced the LPGA to the back pages of media outlets across the country, contributing to the downward spiral.
So what’s a tour to do? Well, the powers that be went out and hired a new commissioner who’s been doing some wheeling and dealing over the past 30 months. Mike Whan oversaw the addition of four tour events in 2012, including the return to Ko Olina for the LPGA Lotte Championship.
Granted, Saturday’s final round didn’t produce the crowds of a half-dozen years ago, when Wie was still a sensation, but thanks to world No. 1 Yani Tseng and eventual Lotte champion Ai Miyazato being in the stellar field, it did provide hope that Whan made the right choice of bringing the tour back to the islands.
There were already signs of hope after Whan’s first two years of duty. Entering 2012, television viewership was up 39 percent stateside and 26 percent overall from 2011. With nine tournament contracts up last year, Whan signed extensions for eight of them, a much better rate than predecessor Carolyn Bivens.
He is willing to experiment, as the LPGA did this week with the Wednesday to Saturday format, so the final round would be live early Sunday morning in Asia. Obviously, Whan knows his audience. Five of the top-11 finishers were from South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Only two were Americans: Cristie Kerr and Brittany Lang.
And there lies the rub. Whan can only promise the moon if the Americans help deliver it. And it’s up to women like Creamer, Pressel, Wie and Stacy Lewis to live up to their potential for the LPGA to escape the back pages.
———
Reach Paul Arnett at parnett@staradvertiser.com or 529-4786.
