Michael Whan Is Still Making Plans

On Monday Morning Drive did a phone interview with LPGA Commissioner Michael Whan, who's in China for the inaugural Blue Bay LPGA event. (You can get a preview of it here at Tony Jesselli's blog.) Whan talked at length about the plans he still has on the table for the LPGA. I've embedded the video of the call below (here's the link in case you don't see it) but I'll sum up the basics of what he said.

In addition to speaking approximately the new Blue Bay event, Whan announced a new sponsor for the International Crown occasion -- UL, a large agency based in Chicago IL -- and that the 2018 event can be held in South Korea. (The 2016 occasion can be in Chicago once more, however Whan said that become due to the fact he desired more manipulate over the first two activities while they labored out the bugs.) But it's only the beginning of what he mentioned.

Although we've known for a while that the LPGA will start the 2015 season in Florida at the brand new Coates Golf Championship, we didn't recognize for positive exactly what number of extra occasions Whan hoped to create. He told us on Monday -- perhaps one more. Here's his logic:

• Unlike the PGA Tour, he tries to schedule events to have a week off after every three or four tournaments.
• He wants to avoid conflicts with the men's majors.
• And also unlike the PGA Tour, he wants roughly a two-month off-season because he believes that's important for the ladies.

When you do the math, that results in about 33 or 34 events per year. The new Coates event will be #33, so he figures on adding just one more.

Beyond that, he has three desires in thoughts:

1. Something still has to be done about the long-term health of the Kraft-Nabisco Championship. Just as the LPGA Championship has been morphed into the Women's PGA Championship, Whan wants to establish the KNC so it will continue uninterrupted for a number of decades.
2. He'd like to see a pro-am event on the LPGA, something like the AT&T on the PGA Tour. Given how much the LPGA works with their sponsors, that's almost a no-brainer.
3. And since the LPGA no longer has a yearly match play event, he'd like to get a new one on the schedule.

Given that Whan says there's only one slot left open on the LPGA schedule, clearly at least one of the existing tournaments will have to be changed to create the match play or pro-am event. That's something we'll have to watch for.

All-in-all, it appears that the LPGA is in even better shape than we thought.

You know, I remember when Michael Whan's "crazy ideas" drew criticism for being too impractical. His critics should be very glad that he doesn't hold a grudge.