Cut the LPGA "Sky is Falling" Talk & Focus on Golf This Week

Look, it's been an awfully tough year for the LPGA Tour.  The season started out poorly enough with lost events all over the place.  Annika is now retired and pregnant, so a miracle comeback won't happen anytime soon.  Ginn pulled out as a major sponsor and shuttered two events in the process.  The schedule is very disjointed creating reduced playing opportunities for the rank and file.  The sponsorship of the Kingsmill event is in doubt.  The Tour may have reduced network TV coverage next year.  Through a combination of bad luck and decisions, the Tour is in a tough place economically speaking.

And don't think for a second that all of this is not going to be brought up frequently this week as the LPGA Tour arrives at Bulle Rock for the LPGA Championship. 

After all, the LPGA will own the LPGA Championship after this week.  It's all theirs.  And right now, as Ron Sirak reports, the Tour has no course or sponsor for the 2010 LPGA Championship.

So where will the LPGA Championship be played in 2010, and under what name? The answer to the first part of the question likely depends on the answer to the second. The title sponsor will have a lot of say in the venue, based on convenience for its corporate needs.

There are rumors Sirak reports hearing that Baltusrol could be in the mix, maybe even Kingsmill if InBev decides to cut its sponsorship.  Ideally, the LPGA Tour would be able to hold this event in a major market like New York City.

It's a gamble for sure to take ownership of a championship with no venue or sponsor in an economy like this.  But, Carolyn Bivens feels that it is a chance worth taking.

We feel like our opportunity to own a major is not that big a risk. We are weighing our option on courses and talking to some remarkable sponsors. We think that this is a risk that is very worth taking and that it's an investment in the future," Bivens said. "The rewards at this point ... are the opportunity to begin to control one's destiny."

I can't disagree with her at all.  It led me to wonder how much benefit of the doubt that I should give to the Commish.  Results from this season seem to indicate that there is some reason to believe.  For the handful of awful things that happened to the Tour this year, some great stuff has happened.

The Tour has a 10 year TV deal with Golf Channel to have a consistent cable home.  (The Tour would add that there is a rights fee, but it really isn't huge and the purses won't go up because of it.)  They also have their most lucrative Korean TV deal with J Golf. 

Heck, J Golf even served as an ad hoc sponsor of the Phoenix event that the LPGA paid to keep going.  They're the sponsor of a new event next season.  The Tour will get to play Torrey Pines next year in a move orchestrated on the Tour's behalf by mega-agency IMG.

And, on Monday, State Farm struck a deal with the Tour to keep their name on the Springfield, Illinois event.

Carolyn Bivens goes hot and cold perhaps more than any commissioner in sports.  One minute, she's pulling off a historic deal.  The next, well, I won't harp on those things.  Despite the Even Steven results that Bivens gets, she's got a Tour loaded with great talent on a course this week that has produced four spectacular champions - Sorenstam, Pak, Pettersen, and Tseng.  This week will be a celebration for the LPGA Tour, Bulle Rock staff, McDonald's, long time tournament chairman Herb Lotman, and the fans that have gotten to see this event for four years.

Sure, the direction of the Tour's namesake major is in question.  But, let's hope that the golf at Bulle Rock this week will help Carolyn Bivens provide the answer.