LPGA has ‘major’ problem elevating Evian to elite status
ATLANTA — In the five years since the LPGA Tour decided that the Evian Championship would be a major, the debate over its status has received as much attention as the winners.
The latest edition raised even more questions.
Last week’s opening round was washed out by rain and raging wind, meaning Park Sung-hyun effectively got a really big mulligan.
The South Korean was 6over when the round was scrapped and started with a 63 the next day. That’s not worthy of an asterisk. It has happened before and it was the most equitable decision.
More disturbing was a “major” contested over 54 holes, a decision the LPGA reached with alarming swiftness.
The LPGA Tour is off this week before going to New Zealand, so it’s not as though another tournament had to be considered.
Heather Daly-Donofr, the tour’s communications and operations officer, said rain was in the forecast through Tuesday. Workers had to use squeegees on the 18th green during Sunday’s playoff, won by Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist.
“Monday was never taken off the table,” Daly-Donofr said. “We really anticipated we might need Monday to complete 54 holes. It gave us the best chance for a compelling championship.”
Only three majors have been contested over 54 holes since 1892 (the first year the British Open went to 72 holes). All of them were on the LPGA Tour.
The first was at the LPGA Championship in 1996 when rain turned already soggy DuPont Country Club into a swamp and they were lucky to get in 54 holes. Tournament organizers wanted a Sunday finish in 1996 because it was on network TV (CBS), and because the hundreds of volunteers needed to stage the tournament might not have been available on Monday.
The other 54-hole major also was at Evian in 2013, its first year as a major, when the soil on a rebuilt course couldn’t handle the hard rain.
More of an issue that year was the very idea that the LPGA could declare a regular tournament a major.
Evian had been on the schedule since 2000. That became a problem when Park In-bee headed to the Women’s British Open at St. Andrews trying to sweep the year’s majors.
No one ever had won a calendar grand slam of professional majors. But would it be a Grand Slam if there were five majors?
Park never contended at St. Andrews, but the Evian issue took away from her bid for a Grand Slam.