We finally know where the inaugural Senior Women’s Open (conducted by the USGA) will be staged in 2018. The 2019 site has also been selected.
Chicago Golf Club, which hosted its first two USGA championships in 1897, has been selected as the 2018 site and Pine Needles in North Carolina, a Donald Ross creation which has hosted several U.S. Women’s Opens, will be the 2019 venue.
As of December 31, the USGA has announced the location of the 2020 Amateur Four-Ball (the Philadelphia Cricket Club) but not yet the inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open scheduled to debut in 2018. Really, USGA? In previous posts, I lobbied the USGA to select one of the great golf venues in Rochester, N.Y.
We do, of course, also wait with bated breath to learn of the site of the 2021 Four-Ball.
As of yesterday, there was no remaining hint on the LPGA’s front page of the scandals that rocked last weekend’s Solheim Cup in Germany. On Monday, there had been a link to European player Suzanne Pettersen’s apology for not conceding, after the fact, an 18-inch putt she was, of course, not required to concede. Nonetheless, Pettersen had brusquely walked off the green before her American opponent had putted, likely creating confusion that led to Alison Lee believing she had conceded it. Having picked up without a valid concession, the Americans lost the hole.
Annika Sorenstam did her part to add to the general consternation being again accused of improperly giving advice to European players during competition. She faced similar accusations in 2013 and has something of a record of ignoring rules or, at least, inexpedient points of etiquette. Not helping are her occasional Irked Princess-style complaints (more than a decade later, she was still miffed over having to replay that silly chip shot at the 2000 Solheim). She ended her career on a rather inauspicious note. Despite understandable frustration with the demeaning random drug tests the tour was performing, she seemed however to simply take exception to the fact that she was subjected to one of them. All in all, “magnanimous” is not the descriptor word that immediately comes to mind.
When it comes to sharp Solheim Cup jabs, who could forget Dottie Pepper’s year 2000 insistence that the Euros should in essence “know their place” since most of them would have been “bagging groceries” if it weren’t for the LPGA Tour.
Juli Inkster’s 68 stole the show at the French Lick Resort’s Pete Dye course today in a closely contested final round that had Inkster, Laura Davies, Trish Johnson, Lorie Kane, Rosie Jones, and Pat Hurst in a close race to the finish in this biggest event in senior women’s golf in the United States.
Jan Stephenson won the “super legends” division carding a 1-under par 71 on Sunday on a French Lick course that played consistent with the expectations of a Pete Dye-designed golf course. Stephenson and JoAnne Carner were inducted into the Legends Tour Hall of Fame earlier in the week at the West Baden Springs Hotel. Legends Tour trailblazer Jane Blalock shot 77-77.
Noteworthy were the absences this week: Lopez, Sheehan, Steinhauer (whose 63 at last year’s event set the Legends Tour record low), Alcott, Daniel, and King were all absent. King has only competed sporadically on the senior circuit but the absence of these other greats at the premier tournament on the Legends schedule must have raised some eyebrows.
The decision to stage a new U.S. Senior Women’s Open was announced in February. This summer’s Opens have been played and one would think that a decision on any remaining unannounced 2018 USGA Championship sites will be made soon. A good argument can be made for holding it here to get these gals back in town.
Pinehurst and Bandon Dunes have been tapped for the 2019 and 2020 U.S. Amateur Championships. We continue to wait for an announcement on the 2018 U.S. Senior Women’s Open. Is Rochester under consideration? Legends Tour players are waiting to see where their dreams will take them in 2018 for that inaugural USGA championship.
Announced last November by The Legends Tour was a new, joint Legends Tour-Symetra Tour tournament in Ft. Myers, Fla. I remarked on it, observing that the format of the event was quite similar to what I had suggested the Legends and Symetra tours do in Rochester, N.Y. with the Danielle Downey Classic.
That new Florida event, being held April 16-19, is now coming up fast. Among those in the field are Nancy Lopez, Betsy King, Amy Alcott, Pat Bradley, Meg Mallon, Liselotte Neumann, and Rosie Jones.
The USGA announced the site of the 2018 Women’s Amateur last week, The Golf Club of Tennessee. The site of that year’s U.S. Women’s Open, Shoal Creek, had already been announced as had the location of the 2018 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, Orchid Island Golf & Beach Club in Vero Beach, Florida.
I previously wrote an open letter to the USGA promoting Rochester, N.Y. as the site of the new U.S. Senior Women’s Open. One possibility is that the USGA will play it the week following the U.S. Women’s Open, à la the 2014 U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open doubleheader at Pinehurst No. 2, thus easing the championship into the calendar for its inaugural edition.
The USGA has been generally announcing Open sites at least three years ahead (usually longer than that). We should know the USGA’s selection relatively soon.
Enough has been written in previous posts to explain and describe the benefits of staging the 2018 U.S. Senior Women’s Open in the Rochester area. I’m taking a break from the verbiage today.
Visuals are more stimulating. To the USGA: Bring the championship to one of these great historic venues.
Oak Hill C.C.
The Country Club of Rochester
Nancy Lopez will be 61 in 2018. Nevertheless, she will undoubtedly be looking forward to another shot at her first USGA “Open” win as a rookie, along with a full field of LPGA greats as rookies, at the USGA’s inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open now scheduled for 2018. This new championship, under consideration for decades (female professionals have never had a senior Open), was announced by the USGA today. Though a decorated player, Lopez never won a U.S. Women’s Open in 26 attempts.
Last September, I wrote on the possibility of an inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open being staged in Rochester, where the LPGA pros were so greatly popular for several decades (1977-2014). The 1973 U.S. Women’s Open was contested at The Country Club of Rochester.
Rochester has a long history of major golf championships including U.S. Opens, PGA Championships, LPGA Championships, the Ryder Cup and U.S. Amateur, the long-running LPGA tournament at Locust Hill C.C., and a U.S. Senior Open. Hosting the first U.S. Senior Women’s Open in 2018 would not only add to that history but it would plug the hole left by the Wegmans LPGA Championship’s departure in 2014.
Developing…
2/8/15 footnote: In 2010, I wrote this column on the same possibility. (subscription-required)
Bringing LPGA Legends Back to Rochester, NY 