Talk of PGA takeover of LPGA heats up as women’s tour honors founders

This is the way it goes for women’s golf these days -- on Friday, the LPGA will finally kick off its first 2011 domestic event designed to honor its founders, just as speculation grows that the PGA Tour may take control of the struggling organization.

In a recent Golf Digest article, Ron Sirak cited "multiple sources" confirming that talks between the tours have moved beyond the long-time "whispered conversations" about the PGA absorbing the LPGA. He also said that some LPGA players who believe their tour to be in serious trouble would be more receptive to the concept than their predecessors.

Despite LPGA commissioner Mike Whan’s statement to Sirak that he would rule out no idea that could bolster women’s golf, an LPGA spokesperson denied that the tour has had any talks with executives from the men’s side.

"We are pleased with our on-going strong relationship with the PGA Tour," the spokesperson said in an e-mail Wednesday night. "Our Commissioners talk regularly, we serve on committees together, we’re in step with them on the introduction of golf to the Olympics in 2016, and we share the same interest in growing the game.

"We certainly have discussed ideas on even more collaborative efforts," the e-mail said, "but there have been absolutely no discussions with the PGA Tour about any sort of business agreement or ownership stake in the LPGA."

PGA officials have "not been in discussions with the LPGA regarding a possible merger, takeover or collaboration," according to a PGA spokesperson, who declined to say whether internal talks about the subject were occurring.

All this while Whan’s vision of celebrating the women who created the tour and supporting future golfers plays out in Phoenix at the inaugural Founders Cup. The tourney, in which players will forego paychecks and sponsor RR Donnelley will donate the $1 million purse to the LPGA-USGA Girls Golf program and other charities, is just one of 13 U.S. events on the 2011 calendar.

LPGA Tour star Cristie Kerr believes women golfers get more respect in Asia than they do at home (Photo: Hunter Martin, Getty Images)

Certainly, as Sirak wrote, the PGA could help the LPGA financially and perhaps ensure more live broadcasting of its events. It’s difficult to imagine, however, how the PGA consuming the tour would be more beneficial to women’s golf than the possibility of an Asian-based global tour. The money’s in Asia, where women’s golf is hugely popular, thanks to so many star players from that part of the world.

Even as passionate a flag-waver as Cristie Kerr noted in a recent Los Angeles Times interview that Asian audiences were far more receptive to women’s golf than those stateside.

"I think we are very well received...in Singapore, and in Asia, where I think right now, we are more stars over here than we are in the United States," she said last month. "People in Asia are crazy for golf. I think we definitely have a warm welcome here, and we feel I think a little bit more ‑‑ not appreciated is not the right word, but we feel maybe more special here.

"We are the best women golfers in the world," Kerr said. "We deserve and want to feel special."

How would Kerr and her colleagues achieve such status if the PGA gobbled them up?

As for the benefits the PGA would accrue from such a deal, surely the men’s tour has no worries about the nearly non-existent competition for viewership from women’s golf, which barely moves the needle now. Not sure, either, how the LPGA -- which lost a huge sponsor for 2012 when State Farm pulled out -- offers "enormous growth potential," as Sirak said, or why TV execs would be geared up to televise co-ed events. How’s the Wendy’s Three-Tour Challenge doing?

There’s no easy fix to the woes of the LPGA, which obviously needs an infusion of cash. A PGA takeover may well be the answer. Broadcasters may also yearn for imaginative ways to spice up their telecasts beyond the same old weekly stroke play, although Golf Channel’s ratings have soared early this season -- even when Tiger Woods was not in the mix.

Just have to wonder whether adding LPGA golfers "as novelty items" to PGA events, as a Women in Sport International post noted recently, is really the way to go.