GOLF REPORT
Kapalua LPGA Classic has Maui back on Tour
| • | LPGA will be dressed Passionately Pink at Kapalua |
| • | Holes in One |
| • | PGA Tour players from Hawaii |
| • | Cool with Justin, Vegas |
By Bill Kwon
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It's Maui no ka 'oi for the LPGA, which returns to the Valley Island for the first time in 16 years with the inaugural Kapalua LPGA Classic beginning today at the Kapalua Bay Course. It's the first LPGA tournament on Maui since 1992 when Wailea hosted the very last Women's Kemper Open.
The women's tour did keep a toe-hold on Maui by playing the LPGA Skins Game at Wailea in 2003, but it wasn't an official tour event.
Good thing, too, that the Kapalua Resort, which also hosts the Mercedes-Benz Championship that opens the PGA Tour season, has come aboard for the women. It still gives the 50th State two LPGA events next year. The Maui stop joins the season-opening SBS Open at Turtle Bay as the second event after sponsors pulled the plug on the Fields Open in Hawai'i at the end of a three-year run at Ko Olina.
The $1.5 million, 72-hole tournament at the Bay Course is a win-win situation for the LPGA, Hawai'i in general and Maui in particular. For the LPGA, it's a stopping-off point that fits the schedule perfectly as the tour goes on its "Asian Swing" from here with stops in China, South Korea and Japan.
No wonder the Kapalua Classic has attracted most of the LPGA's leading players, including seven of the top-10 money winners, led by Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam. Both are ranked 1-2 in the world. Also in the 132-player field are Yani Tseng, who has practically wrapped up rookie-of-the-year honors; Angela Park, 2007's top rookie; and top-10 money leaders Helen Alfredsson, Seon Hwa Lee, Cristie Kerr and Suzann Pettersen. Paula Creamer, winner of the Fields finale in February and second on the money list, U.S. Women's Open champion Inbee Park and Na-Yeon Choi, who's chasing Tseng for rookie-of-the-year honors, are the only top-10 money leaders skipping Maui.
The field also includes Japan's top two stars, Ai Miyazato and Momoko Ueda; Morgan Pressel, who represents the Kapalua Resort; Turtle Bay Resort's Dorothy Delasin; former University of Hawai'i golfer Cindy Rarick, Christina Kim, Hee-Won Han, Pat Hurst, Juli Inkster and Stacy Lewis, who got in on a sponsor's exemption.
Three other players in the field have experienced good vibes on Maui before — Stacy Prammanasudh, Dawn Coe-Jones and Karrie Webb:
Sorenstam, though, could complete an island-hopping grand slam and a 2008 two-fer with a victory at Kapalua. She started the season by winning the SBS Open at Turtle Bay, and what a great story it would be if she ended her farewell tour by winning here again. It would be her fourth LPGA victory in the islands. Sorenstam also hoisted trophies at the 1997 Hawaiian Ladies Open at Kapolei and the 2002 LPGA Takefuji Classic at Waikoloa Beach.
Then, there's Ochoa, who's on her way to her third straight player-of-the-year award. The folks on Maui will get to see her first appearance locally this year as she skipped the opening two events at Turtle Bay and Ko Olina. She has 24 LPGA wins but none in Hawai'i. That would also make good copy.
And local golf fans can surely use some good news now that the Fields Open in Hawai'i, the senior tour's Turtle Bay Championship and the PGA Grand Slam all said aloha, as in good-bye. It wasn't what the aloha in Hawai'i's Aloha Season meant.
With the end of the Women's Kemper Open in 1992, the LPGA was down to only one event in Hawai'i — the Hawaiian Ladies Open under different sponsorships at Turtle Bay, Ko Olina and Kapolei — before it added a second stop with the LPGA Takefuji Classic at the Kona Country Club in 2000. It was back to only one event again in 2002 when the Hawaiian Ladies Open ended a 15-year run that began in 1987 with Rarick getting the first of her five LPGA victories.
When the LPGA Takefuji Classic went three and out and moved to Las Vegas, Hawai'i was left without an LPGA event for two years until the 2005 SBS Open at Turtle Bay. The Fields Open in Hawai'i made it back-to-back events in 2006 before it, too, went three and out.
Fortunately, Seoul Broadcasting System officials are happy with the Turtle Bay Resort and its Palmer Course, making the SBS Open future secure as it can be in these iffy days. The Kapalua LPGA Classic has a five-year commitment, so it'll mean two LPGA events a year for the next several years.
Which is why this week's LPGA Kapalua Classic is such a win-win situation for everyone. Now, let's hope the event can come up with a corporate title sponsor to keep it going.
