NZ Open date change possibility

New Zealand Women’s Open golf tournament director Michael Goldstein has confirmed a move to a summer date will be among topics put under the microscope during an extensive debrief of this year’s weather-affected event at Windross Farm.

LPGA Tour commissioner Michael Whan has already told Stuff that their preference is for the tournament to shift into a February slot alongside the Australian Women’s Open, which creates better travel synergies for the players and also much more favourable weather for the event.

However, it is understood local and central government funding for the Kiwi Lpga-sanctioned event is tied into it occupying its current shoulder season slot. Whan accepted that compromises would have to be negotiated in any future date shift.

Goldstein conceded after the tournament finished early yesterday afternoon, with Canadian superstar Brooke Henderson a runaway champion by five shots, that the requirement to go the extra day because of shocking weather on Sunday would generate further examination of the date.

He also confirmed the extra day had come at a not insignificant financial cost, as well as considerable sacrifice from the army of volunteers, many of whom had rejigged their plans to front up for the unscheduled finish.

‘‘From our perspective it’s a case of working with all our stakeholders to understand what’s going to work with them,’’ said Goldstein, whose company The Clubhouse runs the event.

‘‘Over the next two months we’ll have a debrief and sit down with all our stakeholders and work out what is the way forward.’’

Asked if the tournament was locked into its late-september/early October slot for next year, Goldstein took some time to respond.

‘‘We’ve got long-term contracts with a lot of our partners, so we’ll debrief and work out what we’re going to do.’’

The tournament chief shrugged off the cost, and hit on his bottom line, incurred by finishing as a 72-hole event on Monday – a decision he said was made by the LPGA Tour.

‘‘In the greater scheme of things it’s a relatively small amount,’’ he said. ‘‘This event is a huge financial undertaking and over the next month or so we’ll understand exactly what that cost was.’’

But Goldstein was emphatic that the wild weather of Sunday and high winds that made Monday rather treacherous for some had not deterred from a successful inaugural Lpga-sanctioned tournament in New Zealand.

‘‘Over the last 24 hours I don’t think there have been things we would have done different.

‘‘We trusted the LPGA Tour to make decisions, they did that, then we supported them and implemented everything we needed to do.

‘‘Hopefully we’ve displayed we want this event to be here for a long time.

‘‘We needed to do what we needed to do to show this is a huge championship for New Zealand and we wanted it to finish in the right way.

‘‘I have no doubt it’s been a huge success. The Kiwi public clearly got behind it. I think they understood the significance of what it was.’’