LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan acknowledged the social media uproar that included Tommy Fleetwood calling it “stupid” and Ian Poulter “absolutely embarrassing to the LPGA and to the game of golf.”

But Whan stood by the decisions in a video statement he made at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship on Friday afternoon.

“As it relates to the 2020 ANA Inspiration, we set that field back in March right before we thought we were going to play,” he said. “We did that for one reason. We wanted to make sure that anyone who has qualified to play in this year’s ANA Inspiration was set. You couldn’t play your way out of it now after restarts and COVID stops. Anything that happens after we set that field, we’ll address in future years. I’m pretty sure that’s the same as the Masters. They set their field back in March, April, and now if you win a tournament on the PGA Tour you’re qualifying for the 2021 Masters, not the November 2020 Masters.”

LPGA members, meanwhile, are given a five-year exemption by winning a major championship. Popov, a member of the Symetra Tour, had not yet earned LPGA membership when she won the Women’s Open at Royal Troon last Sunday.

“With regards to two years [exemption] versus five years, I keep getting these texts and emails saying, ‘this has never happened before, Mike. Come on. You’re smarter than this,’” Whan said.

He then noted that during his tenure as commissioner a non-member has won a major on three other occasions, most recently in the 2019 AIG Women’s Open, won by Hinako Shibuno.

“You may not like the regulation,” Whan said. “I’m going to think about that in the off season when we really assess all of our regulations. What I won’t do is change regulations in the middle of the season. What I won’t do is change the regulation on the Monday after an emotional win.

“I will look at that regulation long term because I think that’s a fair question. But I’m not going to do that in the middle of the year. I’m not going to do that on the Monday after. That’s not the right way to run a sport. And quite frankly not the fairest way to treat your athletes. When they tee it up on Monday they ought to know what those wins earn.”

A message from @LPGACommish Mike Whan pic.twitter.com/dthJSzq0jX

— LPGA (@LPGA) August 28, 2020

Whan said he is a Popov fan, that he in fact “cried when she won.” It did not influence his decisions, however.

“I hope this doesn’t take away for all of us for what Sophia deserves, which is an incredible win and an incredible opportunity she’s earned,” he said. “And I’m quite certain that Sophia, like others that have come before, will turn that opportunity into a long-term career.”

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By Joel Beall
The Evian Championship, one of the five majors in women’s professional golf, has been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Officials for the tournament announced the decision on Tuesday, citing ongoing travel/border restrictions and government quarantine requirements for the cancellation.

“I have been incredibly impressed by the entire team at The Evian Championship. They worked so hard to host this global event despite the obvious challenges,” said LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan. “They know that high-pursed, career-changing events like The Evian are more important than ever, especially in an LPGA year that has been drastically reduced due to COVID-19. I know this was a tough decision for everyone involved, but it’s one that we had to take given the restrictions we faced.

“It is disappointing to miss a major championship but Evian’s strong history of showcasing the best female golfers will continue once again when we return in 2021. We look forward to being back on the mountain in Evian next year and for a long time to come.”

Tournament chairman Franck Riboud said the decision was delayed to give as much time as possible for the aforementioned obstacles to work themselves out. However, it was clear in the current landscape they couldn’t guarantee the safety of the field.

“All of our teams are very affected by the forced cancellation of our major, but we must not lose sight of what matters most,” Riboud said.

The Evian has battled schedule problems throughout its history, as its historical September date in France often produced rainy and cold weather. The LPGA moved it to the summer in 2019, hoping its new calendar date would bolster its future, but the tournament had already been delayed to August this year due to the pandemic.

Tournament officials promised the event would be back next summer.

“We are already committed to the next edition in 2021 to fully rediscover the values and the spirit of a family celebration, the conviviality and emotions that have made our Major unique for more than 25 years.,” Riboud said.

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By John Strege
Eighties (27 degrees Celsius) and sunny, the Weather Channel says, forecasting a typically gorgeous spring week in the California desert community of Rancho Mirage. Its sparkling crown jewel, the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club, is pristine, as green as green can be, set off by a sky as blue as blue can be, as blue, alas, as the mood. Cue the soundtrack, Dinah herself, singing “My Melancholy Baby.”

It is an atypical week in this desert, notwithstanding the weather. It is the week on which the first major championship of the year, the LPGA’s ANA Inspiration, was to have been played. But of course there is no golf, no sun-kissed crowd, no celebratory leap into Poppie’s Pond in the gloaming at the end of another memorable week.

On March 12, as the COVID-19 pandemic intensified, LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan announced that the ANA Inspiration had been postponed, a crushing blow to a tour that already had been rocked by cancellations of three of its Asian events.

A golf course without golf is, what, a good walk unspoiled? Mission Hills’ three courses, like others in the state, are closed. The only foot traffic is from residents of the community walking and enjoying the tranquillity, sometimes with their dogs, occasionally with a single golf club and a ball.

“The golf course couldn’t have been in better condition and more ready for a major championship,” Michael Walker, Mission Hills Country Club general manager, said via telephone last week. “It’s just in phenomenal shape, the best condition it has been in in years.”

High praise for a course that this time of year generally is manicured as well as any this side of Augusta National. Meanwhile, the infrastructure—the grandstands around the 18th green and the corporate tents—was in place. The Dinah Course was all dressed up with nowhere to go.

“We stayed very positive all the way through,” Walker said. “There was a sense that they would do everything possible to make sure the tournament happened, until the point it became clearly obvious that there was no way we’d be able to do it from both a travel standpoint or a gallery or fan standpoint. Several other events around the valley had already cancelled, too.”

Among those was the renowned Coachella Music Festival, scheduled to begin five days after the ANA Inspiration ended. It was postponed two days before the LPGA made its decision.

“It felt like the normal buildup to the major,” Larry Bohannan, the golf writer for the Desert Sun, said, recalling the mood in early March. Bohannan has covered the tournament every year since 1987. “It felt like everybody was excited about getting this played.

“Then within a day or two, I thought, This isn’t going to happen, is it? I know talking to people at the tournament and at Mission Hills, they thought about every option, even up until the end, when I thought they probably were going to play with no gallery.”

Bohannan said there was at least something positive when Whan’s decision became public. “I thought it was key when the LPGA announced that the Founders Cup, the Kia Classic and the ANA were postponed,” Bohannan said. “They didn’t want a year without this particular tournament. It has more history and tradition than the rest of the LPGA tournaments combined, between the course and the great list of Hall of Fame winners.”

There’s also good news in the fact that the major championship already has been rescheduled for Sept. 10-13. The date has its own challenges, notably the fact that many of the snowbirds, those who winter in the desert and summer at home in northern states or Canada, will not yet have returned. The volunteer pool likely won’t be as deep and the crowds surely will be smaller.

No matter, the show will (hopefully) go on on a stage that won’t remotely resemble what it is in early April, save for the course routing.

“You’re changing surfaces from a winter grass [rye] surface to a summer grass [Bermuda],” Walker said. “We start our prep for the tournament in November when it comes out of over-seeding, and it takes five to six months to get it ready for a major championship. It’s the same this way. We’ve already started. We’ll primarily have a Bermuda surface. But I’m confident we can get it into major championship condition.”

As for the heat, well, there’s always the heat, a popular topic in the desert. On Sept. 10, 2018, the temperature reached 108 degrees. Two years before that, 109. The record is 115, while the historic average high is 104 degrees.

But it’s a dry heat, the locals would say, teeing up a familiar rejoinder: So is an oven. Look at the bright side. A dip in Poppie’s Pond will be a refreshing one. And whether the temperature is 90 degrees or 110, either way, given the circumstances, it promises to be the best tournament under the sun.

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By Keely Levins
It was inevitable that the LPGA Tour would announce another wave of tournament postponements due to the coronavirus, having previously only addressed events through early April. But the tour offered a bright side to its Friday announcement that three more tour stops were on hold: the 2020 ANA Inspiration, previously postponed, has a new date.

What is ordinarily the first major each year on the LPGA calendar, and was previously supposed to be held April 2-5, is now scheduled for Sept. 10-13 at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

In conjunction with the announcement, the Cambia Portland Classic, originally scheduled for that week in September, will be played the following week.

That said, the soonest the LPGA will return to action now is mid-May after postponing the Lotte Championship in Ko Olina, Oahu, Hawaii (April 15-18), the Hugel-Air Premia L.A. Open in Los Angeles (April 23-26), and the LPGA Mediheal Championship in Daly City, Calif. (April 30-May 3).

“We held out on these events as long as we could, hoping conditions would improve,” LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan wrote in a letter to LPGA players on Friday. “Unfortunately, the current combination of the World Health Organization categorising COVID-19 as a pandemic, local markets implementing very aggressive event/gathering limitations, and unprecedented, broad-scale travel restrictions that impact so many of our players and caddies, made hosting an LPGA official event under these conditions simply not possible or prudent.”

Whan previously had to cancel three tournaments in Asia due to the coronavirus’ presence in China, Singapore and Thailand. Then last week he and the tour announced the postponement of the Founders Cup, Kia Classic and the ANA.

With these further cancellations, the tour’s unexpected break extends to 12 weeks. The last LPGA event played was the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open, which concluded on Feb. 15.

“As you can imagine, we are busy working on dates [and other changes] for postponed events,” Whan told players. “Assuming we get some relief from the COVID-19 issues soon, it’s pretty clear that the rest of the 2020 seasons will be quite busy and crowded. We are focused on giving you as many playing opportunities as we can. I will share more details about the back half of 2020 as soon as I can.

“The truth is, every time I think we’ve made a plan to address changes, it never seems to be ‘long enough.’ I wish I could tell you when the LPGA Tour will resume our schedule, but the truth is, no one has those answers.”

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