Earlier date creates earlier need for LPGA volunteers
Match play tourney at Shadow Creek in need of help in April
With the LPGA moving up the Las Vegas event on its 2024 calendar by nearly two months, the process of getting ready for the tournament also gets moving a lot sooner.
Case in point is the need for volunteers to work the LPGA Match Play, set for the first week of April at Shadow Creek. Tournament officials are looking for hundreds of volunteers to work in a variety of functions.
Volunteers are asked to pay a $65 fee and will receive tournament branded polos, outerwear, hats, a commemorative pin and credentialed parking on site. Meals and snacks will be provided during each shift.
Volunteers must be at least 18 years old and commit to a minimum of three shifts during the week. Those who complete all of their assigned shifts will receive a certificate for a Las Vegas show courtesy of MGM Rewards, one of the Match Play sponsors.
Anyone interested in signing up can do so by going to the tournament page on X at Lpgamatchplay and follow the link to the registration page.
This will be the fourth edition of the LPGA Match Play at Shadow Creek. It will feature 64 golfers divided into 16 pods. Each group will play round-robin matches Wednesday through Friday, with one player emerging from each group for single-elimination matches on the weekend. The round of 16 and quarterfinals will be played Saturday, with the semifinals and finals Sunday.
Pajaree Anannarukarn is the defending champion. The purse for this year’s event has been bumped from $1.5 million to $2 million.
Shriners awaits date
The Shriners Children’s Open is still waiting for its official date on the 2024 PGA Tour calendar.
PGA Tour officials have not released the Fall Series schedule as they navigate through the first season returning to a calendar year schedule. Preliminary schedules have the Shriners back at TPC Summerlin with its traditional October date, although it remains unclear if it will fall on the second or third week of the month. It will most likely follow a new event on the schedule, the Black Desert Championship in Ivins, Utah.
Tour officials have not indicated when the final schedule will be released.
LIV Golf discount
Southern Nevada Golf Association members are being offered discounted tickets for next month’s LIV Golf tournament, set for Feb. 8 to 10 at Las Vegas Country Club. Members can receive a 15 percent discount on daily grounds passes for Thursday ($44), Friday ($46) and Saturday ($49).
The three-day tournament, the first LIV Golf event in the United States in 2024, is being held during Super Bowl week and will feature Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson and others in the 48-player field. Each day will feature a shotgun start, with a team event as part of the tournament.
Dunlap’s magical week
Nick Dunlap’s win at The American Express last week made him the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour since Phil Mickelson in 1991 in Tucson, Arizona, and just the third player to accomplish the feat in the past 65 years.
Some interesting tidbits about the Alabama sophomore’s accomplishment:
■ Dunlap jumped from 4,129th to 68th in the world rankings, marking by far the biggest oneweek leap in rankings history.
■ He joins Tiger Woods as the only men to win the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Junior Amateur and a PGA Tour event.
■ He is the first reigning U.S. Amateur champ to win on the PGA Tour since Woods in 1996.
■ At 20 years, 29 days, Dunlap is the youngest to win on the PGA Tour since Chick Evans won the 1910 Western Open.