LPGA Tour in reasonable shape for '09, but huge challenges loom

Worse, world No. 2 Annika Sorenstam, the greatest player of her generation, is playing in an LPGA event for the final time this week. While Bivens believes the tour is better poised than ever to handle the caprices of the economy, this amounts to a crucial confluence of events.

"I wish this economic downturn had waited one more year," Bivens said. "I wish we'd had one more year, but I'm grateful we've had the last three."

She's paid to put a positive spin on it, of course. She might have learned that art in her last job, in the newspaper business, which is becoming extinct so fast, it must be run by dinosaurs.

Bivens said that during her LPGA tenure, the organization has established a war chest, which is good, because the tour will apparently be propping up at least one sponsor-less tournament next year, in Phoenix. Still, she even envisions an increase in the player pension-fund contribution in 2009.

Given her druthers, Bivens would love to see LPGA tournaments broadcast in an established time slot on a couple of TV outlets, so that a loyal following can be cultivated. The financing model needs a makeover, too, since as a rule, LPGA title sponsors pay for their TV exposure with a time buy, another out-of-pocket expense for companies that seem less-positioned to spend that money going forward. It's tantamount to a reverse rights fee of sorts. For other sports entities, the networks pay for the right to broadcast the events, not vice-versa.

The LPGA lost three events from 2008, in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Hawaii. The season-ending ADT Championship, an odd but popular event with 32 top players and a $1 million prize to the winner, is being moved to the beginning of the 2010 schedule and will not be held next year. It needs a new title sponsor, too.

Next year, South Florida will be without an event for the first time this decade. At this stage, after the contract for the Ginn Open in Orlando expires in April, the entire state will be without an event in 2010. Eleven events next year are overseas, scattered in nine different countries, many of them in Asia, which remains a strong market.

"In this economy," she said, "it's like having a balanced portfolio."

Yeah, that's what we savvy investors thought our 401(k) mutual-fund accounts assured us, right? Even the Asian markets, which produce one of the tour's top revenue streams, are wobbling. Bivens bemoaned the fact that even abroad, the trickle-down effect of the U.S. economy is already being felt with full force.

For the past couple of years, Bivens had momentum on her side because the LPGA, thanks to an infusion of attractive and charismatic players, including a stable of promising young Americans, offered an increasingly popular product to fans.

Will fans, tapped out of discretionary funds, still buy tickets, fork over thousands to play in pricy LPGA pro-ams, or bother volunteering to help run the events?

"It's a scary time for everybody," veteran Cristie Kerr said. "My whole outlook is you've just got to be able to ride the waves. It's scary. It makes you think about where you're going to eat dinner."

Of course, "where" still beats "whether." We're not quite to that point yet.

"It's no secret that the road ahead is going to test our mettle," Bivens said.

If not their metal. A few minutes later, she grabbed her aluminum crutch and hobbled out of the room, hoping the LPGA wasn't down to its last good leg to stand on.