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Post by jumpcut on Apr 4, 2018 23:22:17 GMT
It sounds like Whan got blindsided today and was completely out of the loop. golfweek.com/2018/04/04/commentary-giant-step-for-womens-golf-at-augusta-your-move-lpga/“While this announcement may create some initial challenges for our first major,” said LPGA commissioner Mike Whan in a statement, “navigating multiple opportunities for women’s golf is a good problem to have. We will work together with our partner ANA, the Masters and the media to ensure that the deserved winners in this will be the women (both professional and amateur) and the game of golf overall.”
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Post by 18majors on Apr 4, 2018 23:32:10 GMT
jumpcut It's not a surprise that neither Whan nor LPGA was consulted. In this country of USA, nothing is bigger than Augusta National. They're bigger than Apple, Amazon, Donald Trump, White House, the Supreme Court or the Congress.
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Post by SoYeonFan on Apr 4, 2018 23:39:34 GMT
What's so great about the Masters. It is just a golf tournament run by a bunch of rich snobs.
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Post by 18majors on Apr 4, 2018 23:43:54 GMT
SoYeonFanLet me count the members; Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and etc. etc. Never is a long time. You're young, you may outlive never.
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Post by philknj on Apr 4, 2018 23:49:42 GMT
During the press conference, Ridley was asked if he had called Mike Whan about this...he said yes. Of course, you'd have to be delusional to think that the LPGA would have any influence on the decisions made by ANGC. All in all, it was a ten-strike for Fred. He was asked about the reason for creating this event and he said he has three daughters who enjoy golf, although they're not very good at it...BINGO! That should be good enough for everyone. Even that old battleaxe Christine Brennan could only come up some vague mushy question about the fifteen years between Martha Burke and this new tournament. Ridley was a crazy-good amateur player in the mid-1970s...I get the impression that he's a little different from the old fossils who have run that place in the past.
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Post by HappyFan on Apr 5, 2018 2:13:46 GMT
It sounds like Whan got blindsided today and was completely out of the loop. golfweek.com/2018/04/04/commentary-giant-step-for-womens-golf-at-augusta-your-move-lpga/“While this announcement may create some initial challenges for our first major,” said LPGA commissioner Mike Whan in a statement, “navigating multiple opportunities for women’s golf is a good problem to have. We will work together with our partner ANA, the Masters and the media to ensure that the deserved winners in this will be the women (both professional and amateur) and the game of golf overall.” If Augusta dude cared about women's golf, he has a funny way of showing it. As for Whan, he has to try to make the best of it, so I would pretty much expect him to say what he said. Yes, it's possible that some woman who does well at the Augusta event will go on to the LPGA and become a star. That could happen with the Olympics as well. And it's possible that that star will result in a great improvement of ratings for the LPGA. It's also possible that the event will have a bunch of American teenagers who will be destroyed by the foreign stars when and if they ever get to the pro ranks. And that's assuming any of them have enough charisma for anyone to even care about them in the first place. Meanwhile, you are definitely sapping away attention from an event (ANA) that is already struggling to get attention in the first place. And the ANA will sap away eyes from the women's event as well. Lose-lose proposition. The obvious solution would have been to have the new event take place after the Masters, or find a place on the schedule (if there is any) for the event to take place at Augusta Monday or later.
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Post by philknj on Apr 5, 2018 3:24:01 GMT
The perfect world (fantasy) scenario would be to kill the ANA tournament and replacement it with a Ladies Masters the week after the men's Masters...all the media, infrastructure, and volunteers would still be in place. Unfortunately, this dream will have to wait since the LPGA just re-upped with ANA thru 2022. As for the ANA Junior Inspiration, it's hard to care about it when the practice and tournament rounds were closed to the public and it wasn't televised.
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Post by 18majors on Apr 5, 2018 4:10:06 GMT
HappyFanAugusta National's purpose is simple; to stimulate the growth of Women's golf in America. Augusta National doesn't owe anything to LPGA; or PGA for that matter. It's up to LPGA to take advantage of the growth of women's golf in America to advance welfare for its members.
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Post by jumpcut on Apr 5, 2018 11:07:41 GMT
HappyFanAugusta National's purpose is simple; to stimulate the growth of Women's golf in America. Augusta National doesn't owe anything to LPGA; or PGA for that matter. It's up to LPGA to take advantage of the growth of women's golf in America to advance welfare for its members. The womens golf world is so small, the organizations shouldn't be operating in a vacuum. I appreciate that ANGC has suddenly had an epiphany and now supports womens amateur golf. But that shouldn't mean that, in doing so, they torpedo one of the LPGA's most important events for both pros and amateurs. It sounds like, at best, Ridley made a courtesy call to Whan 10 minutes before he made the announcement. I wouldn't want to be in Whan's shoes right now. Whatever he decides is going to piss off some players, fans and "checkwriters." The easiest thing to do, at least for next year, may be for the Kia and ANA to switch dates. This would make Kia very unhappy, but at least they don't have the significant amateur component that the ANA does.
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Post by mnmlistgolfr on Apr 5, 2018 16:52:49 GMT
If Augusta National and the LPGA teamed up with ANA, could we have the ANA Ladies Masters, and would it be called the ANAL Masters?
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Post by SoYeonFan on Apr 5, 2018 17:36:18 GMT
Switching dates for big sponsors, is how Bevans lost tournaments. Kia is an important sponsor for the LPGA.
I am sure the Masters care as little about the LPGA, as I care about it.
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Post by HappyFan on Apr 5, 2018 23:47:22 GMT
HappyFanAugusta National's purpose is simple; to stimulate the growth of Women's golf in America. Augusta National doesn't owe anything to LPGA; or PGA for that matter. It's up to LPGA to take advantage of the growth of women's golf in America to advance welfare for its members. I would argue that Augusta's main aim was to look like they are helping women's golf. Whether they actually do help it is less important. Though I'm sure they wouldn't mind the tournament succeeding, even if it fails, they can still claim that they tried. Martha Burk's protest might have failed in many ways, but I think the lasting effect it might have had was to give the Augusta people a bit of a public relations black eye. Doing something like the amateur tournament is a cheap way to ameliorate that without having to do something more challenging like give vast numbers of club memberships to women or host a four day women's pro event.
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Post by HappyFan on Apr 5, 2018 23:57:10 GMT
The perfect world (fantasy) scenario would be to kill the ANA tournament and replacement it with a Ladies Masters the week after the men's Masters...all the media, infrastructure, and volunteers would still be in place. Unfortunately, this dream will have to wait since the LPGA just re-upped with ANA thru 2022. As for the ANA Junior Inspiration, it's hard to care about it when the practice and tournament rounds were closed to the public and it wasn't televised. Alas, the LPGA is as passionate about keeping this event around as they are maintaining the fiction of the Solheim Cup as the 'pre-eminent event in women's golf'. But I do think there will soon come a time when Augusta's need to control the run-up to the Masters will so impede the ANA that the LPGA is going to have to think about changing its date. The logical choice would be to swap it with Kia or Lotte, although I think they want to maintain the 'first Major' status and keep it before the Masters. None of that is likely to happen for the next four years, so we'll have to see just how bad things get for the ANA before they do something.
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Post by 18majors on Apr 6, 2018 1:03:13 GMT
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Post by HappyFan on Apr 6, 2018 5:20:13 GMT
I debated writing another long screed, but I'll spare you! I'll just say, though, that it's very interesting to see the implied anti- pro women's golf bias at work in that article. According to them, it's apparently better to stay in school in the hopes of getting into the field of this event than to potentially earn millions of dollars as a top LPGA star. Silly teenage superstars! Left out is the simple question: why not make it a pro event? You don't think Whan would have JUMPED at the idea of having the final round of an LPGA event played Masters week? Why would that be worse at growing the game than an amateur event? Won't girls be even more inspired when they see a potential career they could have rather than a one or two time appearance in an amateur event? How is the Augusta way the best way to grow the game, if that is their goal? The reason that the article does not go there is that the golf media in this country is in LOVE with the (men's) golf establishment and it's not in their DNA to ask such questions.
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