Legend Lopez to Chair Danielle Downey Event at Brook-Lea in Rochester

Nancy Lopez will be chair of the Symetra Tour’s Danielle Downey Classic this summer in Rochester. On this blog in September of 2014, I suggested combining the Downey event with a Legends Tour event when the tournament is held at Brook-Lea so as to bring all of the LPGA greats back to town to launch this new event. The Symetra Tour will be doing something very similar to this at a Florida tournament in April.

It has now been nearly a month since the Lopez announcement was made. We will see if any momentum for a joint Legends-Symetra tournament develops in ROC. For a 2015 event, the clock is ticking loudly.

Perfect New Golf Event for Rochester? A Return of the LPGA’s Greats

They first came to Rochester more than 37 years ago. Many of these women made such an impression on local golf fans that it can’t be said that they ever truly left. Now, as the final Rochester LPGA event has been staged at Monroe G.C., after 37 years at Locust Hill C.C. and having been a “major” championship since 2010, the golf community is left without a top-tier women’s golf event. However, good memories and the spirit of the event persist among the many players, volunteers, organizers, and fans of the yearly competition. Though the Rochester community’s LPGA tournament is gone, and many of the revered players have moved onwards to their “senior” days, these players remain in the heart of Rochester golf fans—and ready to compete here again.

The community greatly benefited from the event’s long presence. Due to its support of Camp Good Days and other charities, and the golf competition itself, it became a local tradition and gathering place for the golf and business communities.

The Legends Tour, spearheaded by 1979 Rochester LPGA champion Jane Blalock in 2000, has assembled a contingent of events each year for LPGA players 45 and older. Many of the “legends” who were former Rochester champs enjoyed blockbuster crowds in 2006 when a special, former champions “shootout” was held at Locust Hill on Tuesday of tournament week. Attendance was comparable to most Thursday or Friday rounds.

A perfect, albeit smaller and more modestly-funded, replacement for the long-running LPGA tournament at Locust Hill and Monroe would be a Rochester Legends Tour event. Once again, the likes of Nancy Lopez, Patty Sheehan, Pat Bradley, Rosie Jones, Laura Davies, and Juli Inkster would grace the local golf scene as part of a community-building event. (Note: Annika Sorenstam will also be 45 in October of 2015)

Perhaps the USGA will decide the stage an inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open, a possibility under consideration. Rochester, due to the mutual appreciation between LPGA players and Rochester fans through the decades, and its great golf venues, would be an excellent choice for the first Open. In either case, whether as a fan-friendly Legends event, or a USGA championship, a return is possible and this blog is intended to serve as an informal discussion forum dedicated to the subject.

As related by the D&C: “Nancy Lopez will never forget the crowds, and the way Rochesterians welcomed the players of the LPGA Tour into their town, into their homes and into their hearts…”