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.

Power of Suggestion? Joint Legends-Symetra Patty Berg Tournament Set for April

A combined Symetra Tour-Legends Tour tournament, almost exactly what I suggested in September (Rochester’s Danielle Downey Classic Should Include LPGA “Legends” Competition; September 29, 2014) for next year’s Danielle Downey event at Brook-Lea in Rochester, has been announced for April 2015 in Florida. The Chico’s Patty Berg Memorial tournament will feature a 72-hole event for the Symetra players and a 36-hole event for the Legends Tour.

I’ll keep posting and maybe we can make more things just happen…

Legends Tour Heads to Delray Beach for Next Event

The Legends Tour tees up again at its next event, the Walgreens Charity Championship, in Delray Beach, Florida from November 6-9 at Seagate C.C. A star-studded field of LPGA greats will be there to close out the 2014 season including former Rochester winners Patty Sheehan, Nancy Lopez, Pat Bradley, Sandra Haynie, Rosie Jones, Meg Mallon, Jane Blalock, and Judy Dickinson.

At their last event at Old Waverly in Mississippi, the American team defeated the World team in the Handa Cup.

Photo Credit: The Legends Tour

Rochester’s Danielle Downey Classic Should Include LPGA “Legends” Competition

In 2006, the Wegmans LPGA Rochester tournament featured a Tuesday “shootout” for former Rochester champs mostly retired from LPGA competition. Pat Bradley was the 18-hole winner over players such as Patty Sheehan, Nancy Lopez, Jane Blalock, Deb Richard, and Kathy Whitworth. It was very successful and well-attended (an LPGA tour caddie remarked that there was a larger gallery that day than at the prior week’s tournament in Westchester County). In fact, the attendance probably exceeded most Thursday tournament rounds. There is a hunger to see former stars that formed a bond with the local golf community and that have largely, although not completely, exited the limelight.

Including a similar event, or even a 36-hole Legends Tour event before or during Classic week at Brook-Lea C.C., would be a great way to remember that Rochester golf history of which Danielle Downey formed a part. The 2014 LPGA Championship completely failed to do this. Correcting that error at next summer’s Symetra Tour event would guarantee even greater attendance and attention for the Downey Classic.

Those past champs, or the LPGA “legends” players in general, could compete in their own senior division in a block of times either before or after the tee times for the main Symetra Tour competition-on Saturday and Sunday perhaps. Something similar to this is done each year at the 3M Championship. Staged on a Donald Ross course and featuring the LPGA’s past, present, and future, the Danielle Downey Classic would bring “full circle” Rochester’s LPGA golf history in a way the LPGA tournament never quite did.

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…”