Celine Boutier birdied the 18th hole in regulation and a playoff to claim the LPGA Drive On Championship title and become the all-time leading tour winner from France. Meg Oliphant

It took a playoff for Celine Boutier and Georgia Hall to settle the LPGA Drive On Championship. And after both finished at 20-under at the par-72 Superstition Mountain Golf & Country Club outside Phoenix, Boutier grabbed the title with a birdie on the first extra hole. In the process, the 29-year-old passed a notable milestone, becoming the most successful French female golfer ever.

“I definitely feel like I was trying not to think about it just because it’s so crazy to think that I’m making history in any way,” said Boutier after claiming tour title No. 3, passing Patricia Meunier-Lebouc and Anne-Marie Palli.

There were other memorable parts to Boutier’s victory. This week marked the first time she closed out a 54-hole lead in her career. And her consistency around the greens proved pivotal as she got up and down eight of nine times on Sunday in posting a closing four-under 68, including on four consecutive holes to close out her first victory since the 2021 Shoprite LPGA Classic.

As it turned out, Palli was at Superstition Mountain on Sunday to watch the final round. The 67-year-old reflected on how Boutier’s win may impact French golf’s future.

“I think it’s wonderful what [she’s] doing. And then we have Pauline [Roussin Bouchard] as well, a young 22-year-old that is going to have a phenomenal career as well,” Palli said, “All that, as you can imagine, it’s very inspiring for young French player to play.”

Usually, Boutier and Hall are lined up together in match-play competition. The tandem has been a force for Team Europe at the last two Solheim Cups, earning a combined 3-0-1 record in team matches. Having to go against her Solheim teammate made the victory bittersweet.

“To be honest, it was not enjoyable. I feel like I’m not confrontational by any means, and I really like Georgia,” Boutier said, “We were partners [at the Solheim] so I feel like it was definitely a little bit sad that I had to go against her. But she had a great round today and it was great that she had such a nice round and be able to go on to the playoff.”

Hall sprinted down the back nine with a closing 30 to shoot a seven-under 65. She went birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie from the 11th through the 14th hole to propel up the leaderboard. Hall moved to 1-1 in career playoffs, having won the 2020 Cambia Portland Classic against Ashleigh Buhai in extra holes.

“Obviously fantastic to get to the position I was in,” Hall said, “I knew I had to shoot low today, and obviously gutted about the playoff.”

Ayaka Furue teed off almost two hours before the final pairing and finished with a clubhouse lead of 19-under after posting a bogey-free 65. However, she narrowly missed another opportunity to go head-to-head with Boutier, as the 2022 rookie beat the Frenchwoman for her first LPGA career victory last July at the Trust Golf Women’s Scottish Open. Instead, she earned her second consecutive third-place finish, ther other comimg at the HSBC Women’s World Championship at the start of March.

Jin Young Ko, No. 3 in the Rolex Women’s World Rankings, had an opportunity to return to No. 1 with a victory despite being ill. On Friday, the Korean explained she lost her voice and couldn’t communicate well with her caddie David Brooker.

Leaving the desert with a new friend ?@celineboutier | LPGA Drive On Championship pic.twitter.com/cIOY4qBvTw

— LPGA (@LPGA) March 27, 2023

In spite of Ko’s illness, the 27-year-old moved into a share of the lead at 17-under on the back nine, but that’s where the 13-time LPGA winner finished after posting a closing four-under par 68, good enough for T-5. Ko last was the No. 1 player in the world rankings this past October.

Boutier’s victory adds to the lore of past LPGA champions at Superstition Mountain. When the tour was last at the course for the Safeway International from 2004-2008, Lorena Ochoa, Annika Sorenstam and Juli Inkster were three of the victors over five years. Now, Boutier stands alongside some of the tour’s all-time greats.

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“It was not easy by any means. I feel like this course is very scoreable, so you know you have to make a lot of birdies,” said Boutier.

It was Boutier’s third career LPGA victory in her seventh season on tour, allowing her to pass Patricia Meunier-Lebouc and Anne-Marie Palli and become the all-time leading LPGA winner from France.

“It’s very special,” Boutier said of the milestone. “I was trying not to think about it because it was so crazy to think about making history in any way.”

With the victory, Boutier claimed a first-place prize money payout of $262,500, allowing her to surpass the $4 million mark in career earnings.

The overall purse at Superstition Mountain was $1.75 million. Here’s the prize money payouts from each golfer who made the cut this week in Arizona.

Win: Celine Boutier, -20, $262,500
2: Georgia Hall, -20, $160,458
3: Ayaka Furue, -19, $116,401
4: Narin An, -18, $90,045
T-5: Ally Ewing, -17, $65,888
T-5: Jin Young Ko, -17, $65,888
T-7: Stacy Lewis, -16, $37,185
T-7: Hinako Shibuno, -16, $37,185
T-7: Charley Hull, -16, $37,185
T-7: Lilia Vu, -16, $37,185
T-7: Maddie Szeryk, -16, $37,185
T-7: Hae Ran Ryu, -16, $37,185
T-7: Moriya Jutanugarn, -16, $37,185
T-14: Cheyenne Knight, -15, $26,267
T-14: Celine Borge, -15, $26,267
T-16: Daniela Darquea, -14, $21,159
T-16: Emily Kristine Pedersen, -14, $21,159
T-16: Ruoning Yin, -14, $21,159
T-16: Atthaya Thitikul, -14, $21,159
T-16: Amy Yang, -14, $21,159
T-16: Annie Park, -14, $21,159
T-16: Ariya Jutanugarn, -14, $21,159
T-23: Lauren Coughlin, -13, $15,022
T-23: Pernilla Lindberg, -13, $15,022
T-23: Chella Choi, -13, $15,022
T-23: Allisen Corpuz, -13, $15,022
T-23: Stephanie Meadow, -13, $15,022
T-23: Leona Maguire, -13, $15,022
T-23: Pavarisa Yoktuan, -13, $15,022
T-23: Yuka Saso, -13, $15,022
T-23: Ryann O’Toole, -13, $15,022
T-23: Sei Young Kim, -13, $15,022
T-23: Jenny Shin, -13, $15,022
T-34: Jennifer Song, -12, $10,806
T-34: Mina Harigae, -12, $10,806
T-34: Jodi Ewart Shadoff, -12, $10,806
T-34: Jennifer Kupcho, -12, $10,806
T-34: Alison Lee, -12, $10,806
T-39: Frida Kinhult, -11, $8,141
T-39: Marina Alex, -11, $8,141
T-39: Azahara Munoz, -11, $8,141
T-39: Patty Tavatanakit, -11, $8,141
T-39: Megan Khang, -11, $8,141
T-39: Xiaowen Yin, -11, $8,141
T-39: Mel Reid, -11, $8,141
T-39: Eun-Hee Ji, -11, $8,141
T-39: Gaby Lopez, -11, $8,141
T-48: Maude-Aimee Leblanc, -10, $5,827
T-48: A Lim Kim, -10, $5,827
T-48: Hannah Green, -10, $5,827
T-48: Perrine Delacour, -10, $5,827
T-48: Yaeeun Hong, -10, $5,827
T-48: Matilda Castren, -10, $5,827
T-48: In Gee Chun, -10, $5,827
T-48: Nanna Koerstz Madsen, -10, $5,827
T-48: Wei-Ling Hsu, -10, $5,827
T-57: Lizette Salas, -9, $4,586
T-57: Alexa Pano, -9, $4,586
T-57: Chanettee Wannasaen, -9, $4,586
T-57: Dana Fall, -9, $4,586
T-57: Nelly Korda, -9, $4,586
T-62: Wichanee Meechai, -8, $4,085
T-62: Yealimi Noh, -8, $4,085
T-62: Carlota Ciganda, -8, $4,085
T-62: Caroline Inglis, -8, $4,085
T-66: Gina Kim, -6, $3,822
T-66: Madelene Sagstrom, -6, $3,822
T-68: Paula Reto, -5, $3,540
T-68: Hye-Jin Choi, -5, $3,540
T-68: Brittany Lincicome, -5, $3,540
T-68: Pajaree Anannarukarn, -5, $3,540
T-68: Albane Valenzuela, -5, $3,540
73: Bronte Law, -4, $3,382
74: Minami Katsu, -3, $3,338
75: Elizabeth Szokol, -2, $3,298
76: Angel Yin, -1, $3,256

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Celine Boutier was flying the flags of France and the Ladies European Tour in the United States as she defeated fellow LET poster girl Georgia Hall to claim the Drive on Championship in a dramatic playoff on Sunday.

Boutier showed her mettle by forcing a playoff by with a clutch birdie putt at the par-5 18th to post a 4-under 68, matching Hall (65) at 20-under as the Europeans outdid their hosts on American soil in the LPGA’s first full-field event of the season.

Playing the 18th again, neither golfer found the green but Boutier held her nerve, producing yet another impressive birdie putt to deny 2018 Open champ Hall.

Boutier had mixed feelings about squaring off in a playoff against — and beating — Hall, a former Solheim Cup teammate.

“I was honestly not looking forward to it,” Boutier said. “It’s a bittersweet feeling because you obviously want to win, but at the same time I really think she’s an amazing player. She is a really good friend of mine. So I feel like it’s not always easy, but also I’m a little bit competitive, so I feel like I definitely want to win as well. But it’s not the greatest feeling.”

Leaving the desert with a new friend ?@celineboutier | LPGA Drive On Championship pic.twitter.com/cIOY4qBvTw

— LPGA (@LPGA) March 27, 2023

With the victory, the 29-year-old Boutier claimed her third LPGA victory and became the most successful French player on tour, moving past Patricia Meunier-Lebouc and Anne-Marie Palli. She had previously won the 2019 Vic Open and 2021 ShopRite Classic.

Boutier posted two early birdies at 2 and 3 and gave a stroke back with bogey at the sixth. On the back nine, she made a move with birdies at 11 and 13, and none more important than the clutch putt at the 18th, her 72nd hole.

“I was a little bit nervous, but not as much as I expected or I thought I was going to be,” she said. “I feel like I was just really focused. I had a really tough chip from the right with a break from right to left, so I was just trying to get as close as I could. Then the 5- or 6-footer was definitely a little bit of pressure.”

After three birdie-filled rounds at Superstition Mountain Golf Club, the final round started with 17 players within three shots of the lead and stayed to form.

Hall made the most of her fourth round, posting one of three 7-under par scores, including going 6 under on the back nine to take a clubhouse lead, finishing about an hour ahead of Boutier.

Hall, who was looking for her first win since the 2020 Cambia Portland Classic, which followed a victory at the Women’s British Open in 2018, tried to find some consolation in her near-miss.

“Obviously fantastic to get to the position I was in,” the 26-year-old major winner said. “I knew I had to shoot low today, and obviously gutted about the playoff.”

Japan’s Ayaka Furue closed with a 65 and finished third at 19-under. Na Rin An of South Korea was alone in fourth at 18-under with a closing 67, while American Ally Ewing (67) and South Korea’s Jin Young Ko (68) were another stroke back in fifth.

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By Keely Levins
While Bryson DeChambeau was boasting about his first 400-plus-yard drive, there were some big gains on the LPGA Tour, too. Bianca Pagdanganan, a rookie who turns 23 on Wednesday, has enjoyed notoriety of late by appearing near the top of the LPGA Tour’s distance rankings. She’s averaging 288.8 yards for the season, besting fellow bombers Maria Fassi (282.2 yards) and Anne van Dam (281.8 yards) to lead the tour. But at the LPGA Drive On Championship at Reynolds Lake Oconee, Pagdanganan was hitting it far—even for her.

According to the tour, Pagdanganan’s longest drive of the week came during Saturday’s third round, when she hit her tee shot on the 18th hole 317 yards. She had an iron into the green with her second shot, while others had to lay up on the closing par 5.

Pagdanganan’s father told LPGA.com that she wants to become the first LPGA player to have a driving-distance average of 300 yards. And she nearly did that at least for a week in Georgia. Pagdanganan’s first-round driving average was 300 yards (a stat computed off the average tee shots on two selected holes where all players are presumed to hit driver). She followed that with a 295-yard average in the second round, 310 yards during the third round and 293 yards in the final round. That brought her four-round average to 299.5 yards, incredibly close to the 300-yard mark.

Interestingly, Pagdanganan is hitting it far without having the benefit of height or a big athletic build similar to other long drivers on the LPGA Tour. Van Dam stands 5’10” while Pagdanganan is all of 5’5”.

Importantly, Pagdanganan, a native of the Phillipines who played on the 2018 NCAA Championship team at Arizona along with fellow LPGA rookie Haley Moore, is more than just a bomber. Her last two performances suggests she’s arrived on tour will a full game. She finished third on Sunday at the Drive On Championship, going bogey-free during her final round while finishing two shots back of winner Ally McDonald and one shot behind runner-up Danielle Kang. Before that, Pagdanganan finished T-9 at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, her first career start in a major.

“If you told me a couple years ago that I would be playing on the LPGA Tour and in this position in my rookie year I probably wouldn’t believe you,” Pagdanganan said.

Though she didn’t hit the 300-yard average in Georgia, it’s would seem to be only a matter of time before she does.

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By Keely Levins
The LPGA Tour announced on Wednesday that during its testing ahead of this week’s LPGA Drive On Championship at Reynolds Lake Oconee in Georgia, two people came up positive for COVID-19, although neither was a player. Following contact tracing protocol, however, Maria Torres has withdrawn from the tournament after her caddie was one of the two positive results.

The other person who tested positive is a childcare provider who worked in the tour’s daycare, a benefit the tour offers members who are mothers so they can compete without worrying about childcare while they’re on course. According to a statement from the LPGA, the provider who tested positive was in contact with children in the daycare on Monday. The childcare provider is in quarantine, and following contract tracing, the children who were in contact with the childcare provider are in quarantine. However, the mothers of the children, who are players, do not have to quarantine.

“Following guidance from the CDC and the LPGA medical directors, contacts of a contact [in this case, tour member mothers] are not considered contagious and do not require isolation or quarantine,” the LPGA statement reads.

Torres, the first woman from Puerto Rico to secure her LPGA Tour card, is in her third season on tour. The 25-year-old, who has had one top 10 finish this season, is symptom-free.

“After learning through the LPGA Tour testing process that my caddie tested positive for COVID-19, I have withdrawn from the LPGA Drive On Championship,” Torres said in a statement. “I am not experiencing any symptoms, but I am self-isolating and will follow CDC and LPGA guidelines. I really look forward to when I can play again and wish best of luck to everyone competing this week.”

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By Keely Levins
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to make international travel a challenge. So much so, that the LPGA Tour announced it was cancelling the remaining events on its Asian swing originally scheduled for this fall.

Originally, there were four tournaments slated to be as part of the swing, with two of those events having already been cancelled. The tour has announced the final two—the BMW Ladies Championship in South Korea and the TOTO Japan Classic—had also been dropped due to quarantine requirements in place that make crossing the country borders difficult. Both events will be back on the LPGA Tour schedule in 2021.

The tour’s announcement of the cancellations came with some good news, however. A new event has been added to the fall schedule to help fill the gap created by the cancelled tournaments.

“Since we, unfortunately, cannot travel to Asia, we felt it was very important to add another competitive opportunity for our players,” Mike Whan, LPGA Tour commissioner, said.

From Oct. 22-25, the tour will be in Georgia at Reynolds Lake Oconee, playing the LPGA Drive On Championship. The 72-hole event will have a $1.3 million purse.

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It was fitting that it was Kang vs. Boutier on the final day, Solheim Cup rivals from 2019 at Gleneagles. The 2021 match will be held at historic Toledo, Ohio, course, and their showdown offered a tasty preview. Kang and Boutier had two of the most memorable rookie performances in recent Solheim Cup history, with Kang igniting the crowd and going 3-1-0 in Des Moines in 2017. Boutier made her debut in Scotland last year, winning all four of the matches she played in.

Boutier had a chance to push the tournament to a playoff on the 18th, where her 80-yard approach shot settled three feet below the cup. Kang was in with her par and the one-shot lead. Boutier’s birdie try, however, hit the lip but didn’t fall.

Kang’s win—her fourth in four years—comes after a long break that she says she didn’t really treat like a break. Fully aware of how lucky she was to be in the position she was in as the world changed around her, Kang instead decided to work on her game. She said the normal, short off-season doesn’t give enough time to pay close enough attention to certain details while also giving the body time to heal from small, nagging injuries. But with a lot of time off and no travel to wear her down, Kang was working with her coach Butch Harmon, while also playing with her boyfriend, PGA Tour pro Maverick McNealy, and mini-tour pro brother, Alex Kang. She credits the competitions with the guys as keeping her sharp and ready for tournament play, despite having not played a tournament since January.

“The boys that I play with are so good, that I try and keep up and we always have a competition,” Kang said. “So that keeps me up to date.”

While competition with the guys kept her sharp on-course, Harmon focused on helping her figure out how to hit her 3-wood more consistently and improve her wedge game. “Butch was the mastermind behind it,” Kang said. “He knew exactly what I needed to accomplish and work on, and I had the time.

“I’m not a huge fan of 3-woods and I really worked on 3-wood a lot. I just kept hitting 3-woods until Butch and I got it right,” Kang said. “Eventually he said his goal was to make 3-wood my best club in the bag, and it was a highlight of this entire week. I hit a lot of 3-woods.”

Kang has another golf great helping her: Annika Sorenstam. Kang says she calls and texts Sorenstam when she needs advice and to ask for help with her game. The advice for this week: Be aggressive.

And that’s exactly how Kang played.

After making a bogey at the par-5 13th, Kang and her caddie reset, deciding that there were three birdies left on the course. They wanted to finish at 10 under. When Boutier made birdie at the 14th to pull even with Kang, the plan didn’t change. She continued to hit the aggressive shots.

“It’s a goal that we make that’s a little bit hard to reach, but it keeps me pushing, it keeps me staying aggressive with the golf course so that I don’t get too cautious,” Kang said. “Like on 17, I would have normally hit an 8-iron if I wasn’t told 1,000 times to stay aggressive. So, I took a 7-iron and tried to punch it in the wind, and I went, I think that’s over the green. That’s the one place you don’t want to be, but we stuck to our game plan and it totally played off.”

When Kang won, she was showered with a socially distanced misting of champagne and air hugs from fellow tour pros Amy Yang, Lizette Salas and Lydia Ko. As she sat in the press room answering questions from journalists over Zoom, Harmon called her. Kang said her post-victory celebration would include yelling at the TV as McNealy finishes his round at the Barracuda Championship, going for his own win.

Though Kang has to ultimately convert the shots on-course alone, as every golfer does, she gains great strength from this golf community she’s built around her.

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The last time the women’s tour was in action was Feb. 16, the final round of the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open. The event was supposed to lead into the start of the LPGA’s Asian swing, which instead turned out to be the start of COVID-19 surging overseas. Subsequently, LPGA commissioner Mike Whan had to put a halt to the season after just four events and regroup with his executive team to get a plan in place to salvage the season amid the pandemic.

The re-imagined schedule begins when this week at the LPGA Drive On Championship at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio. When the opening round is played Friday, it will have been 166 days since the tour last competed. With the wait finally over, how exactly is a competition going to work? Here are the answers to seven key LPGA Tour restart questions.

• • •

So what does the revamped schedule look like?

Play begins this week with a newly created 54-hole event at the site of next year’s Solheim Cup. It’s the first of 18 tournaments slated for the remainder of 2020, this one with a field of 144 competitors. All 12 members of the 2019 U.S. Solheim Cup team are in the field, including Nelly and Jessica Korda, Lexi Thompson and Danielle Kang. Eight of the 12 members of the European team are also competing.

The season continues with a second stop in Ohio (Marathon Classic), then heads to Scotland to play the AIG Women’s British Open and the Ladies Scottish Open. The tour then returns to the U.S. for six events before taking its fall swing in Asia for four tournaments. It’s back again then to the U.S., with the tour still wrapping up at the CME Group Tour Championship, just a month later (Dec. 17-20) than first scheduled.

• • •

How are players getting to tournaments?

While the PGA Tour has provided a charter plane for player and caddies to purchase seats for travel, LPGA are seeking their own transportation between events. Players are finding different ways to get to tournaments: Jennifer Kupcho drove the 16 hours from Colorado to Ohio for the first event. Christina Kim flew … in a hazmat suit.

Safety first for my flight to Toledo. No chances being taken. pic.twitter.com/Rxk1oe7VtG

— Christina Kim (@TheChristinaKim) July 27, 2020

When the tour leaves the U.S. for Scotland on Aug. 9, all of the players will be on a charter flight together. Currently, that is the only planned charter flight for the tour.

• • •

What are international players doing?

For players who live outside of the U.S., it’s more complicated than just packing the car and driving hundreds of miles. Long, international flights bring their own concerns.

“I have maybe a couple of European friends who are just going to stay over in Europe and start over in Scotland instead,” said Sweden’s Pernilla Lindberg, the 2018 ANA Inspiration champ. “But amongst my friends in the U.S., everyone is going to get started in Ohio.”

Most notably, top players from South Korea are opting, mostly, out of the first events on the calendar rather than come early to the U.S. Jin Young Ko, Sung Hyun Park, Sei Young Kim and Hyo-Joo Kim are all ranked in the top 10 in the world, but none are in the field for Inverness. Ko (No. 1 in the world) and Park (No. 3) also reportedly won’t be playing in the first major of the year, the AIG Women’s British Open, citing concerns over travelling.

Having been playing in South Korea the last few months, World No. 1 Jin Young Ko will not be travelling to the U.S. or Scotland for the early part of the LPGA season. It’s unclear when she, or other top Korean golfers, might be returning. (Handout)

Another prominent Korean player still undecided about her return is reigning U.S. Women’s Open champion Jeongeun Lee6.

“Jeongeun has not decided which tournament she will participate in. She thinks it is not safe to travel in a different country, so she has been playing in KLPGA tournaments,” Lee6’s agent, Jennifer Kim, told Golf Digest via email. “When everything is settled, she will definitely attend the LPGA tour.”

• • •

How will testing work?

Players, caddies and everyone else within the “testing pool” will take a test at home before they travel. If that test comes back negative, they are allowed to travel to the event. Once they arrive at the tournament site, they’ll take the saliva swab test again. If they get tested on Monday, they’ll receive their results by Tuesday afternoon. While waiting for their results, they can use the practice facilities and the golf course, but they can’t go anywhere inside the clubhouse or locker room. Once a negative test result is produced, they’re allowed full access. Temperatures will be taken daily and players have been provided Whoop straps, which Nick Watney on the PGA Tour proved are useful in detecting the onset of COVID-19.

• • •

Are fans allowed to tournaments?

Fans will not be allowed at the Drive On Championship, nor will they be at the Marathon Classic. Whan says plans have been created to allow 2,000 fans onsite, with the roping necessary to create six feet of distance, but whether or not fans are permitted is ultimately determined by the local government guidelines.

“We don’t really have a lot of concerns about a small footprint of fans. But at the same time, we are going to follow whatever our title sponsor and the local health authority thinks is right,” Whan said. “We are comfortable playing with no fans.”

LPGA commissioner Mike Whan impressively put together a 18 tournament slate for the remainder of 2020 with purses on average expected to exceed the amounts previously forecasted for the season. (Jennifer Stewart)

• • •

Has prize money been affected?

Yes, but not in the way that you’d expect. The toll the coronavirus has taken on the global economy and the fact that there is lost revenue in not having fans at events would make one assume that purse sizes would be smaller on the LPGA Tour this year.

But the opposite has happened: Purses on average are expected to be bigger. Some title sponsors for tournaments that couldn’t be rescheduled gave money intended for their purses to other events’ purses. The AON Risk Reward challenge, a $1 million prize given to the player who scores best on the most strategically difficult holes throughout the year, has also been reallocated to purses instead of going to one player at the end of the season.

• • •

How many majors are on the schedule?

Like the PGA Tour, which lost the Open Championship, the LPGA Tour wasn’t able to get through the 2020 season without missing a major. The Evian Championship has been cancelled, but the other four majors are still on the calendar in new spots.

AIG Women’s British Open, Royal Troon, Scotland, Aug. 20-23
ANA Inspiration, Mission Hills C.C., Rancho Mirage, Calif., Sept. 10-13
KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, Aronimink Golf Club, Newtown Square, Pa., Oct. 8-11
U.S. Women’s Open, Champions Golf Club, Houston, Dec. 10-13

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By John Strege
Welcome news emanated from LPGA headquarters Tuesday when the tour announced that it will resume its season next month with back-to-back tournaments in Northwest Ohio, one of them a new event.

The new addition is the LPGA Drive On Championship, a 54-hole tournament scheduled for July 31-Aug. 2 at the storied Inverness Club in Toledo, site of the 2021 Solheim Cup. It will feature a 144-player field and a $1 million purse and will be played without spectators, sponsors or pro-ams.

The Marathon LPGA Classic presented by Dana, originally scheduled for July 23-26, will be played on Aug. 6-9, at Highland Meadows Golf Club in Sylvania, Ohio. It will allow spectators based on Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s recent approval.

“Thanks in part to the generosity of our partners who could not reschedule their events in 2020, we are adding a valuable additional playing opportunity for our LPGA Tour members,” LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan said in a news release.

“We are so appreciative of our longtime partners, Marathon and Dana, as well as the memberships at Highland Meadows and Inverness, for adjusting their schedules and helping us create a valuable two-week stretch in the Toledo area as we work to safely return to competition. This new event will allow us to test our COVID-19 protocols before we get to welcome back our fans at the Marathon LPGA Classic presented by Dana.”

Inverness has hosted four U.S. Opens and two PGA Championships.

The LPGA has been idle since the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open, which concluded on Feb. 16. It was won by Inbee Park.

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