LPGA to restart tour in July

The LPGA announced its revised calendar for 2020 on Wednesday with a planned return to play at the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational in Michigan on 15th July. There will also be more cash available due to increases in the purses for many of the events. Players will compete for an average of nearly $2.7 million per event.

Although this will be a welcome announcement, it did come with a caveat with LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan warning that the schedule was subject to improvement in the COVID-19 position in the USA.

“While July seems like a long way away, we are certainly aware that restarting our season in Michigan, Ohio and New Jersey will require a continued improvement in the situation in each of those states,” said Whan.

The LPGA, like all the tour bodies is under enormous pressure to get playing again as the COVID-19 pandemic threatens its very existence.

The new-look schedule for 2020 still includes the two European based majors, The Evian Championship in France on 6th August and the AIG Women’s British Open due to be played at Royal Troon, Scotland two weeks later.

In an interview on the Golf Central channel, Whan set out the thinking behind the decision to aim for a mid-July start and the fact that the LPGA will be continually reviewing with what Whan describes as “a 45 day out decision.” A rolling process will follow a review at the end of May as to whether the mid-July start is doable.

Whan also confirmed that one of the biggest challenges would be testing with the plan being to test all players, caddies and volunteers and to have daily monitoring of individual’s temperatures.

For the revised LPGA Tour schedule click HERE