Incredible shrinking LPGA schedule about money, mismanagement

It has to represent the most momentous contraction in LPGA history, or at the very least since Annika Sorenstam gave birth to her first child after quitting the tour.

On Wednesday in suburban Texas, the LPGA again introduced its new boss, largely unheralded and mostly unknown Mike Whan, who had best grab the steering wheel and hang on with white knuckles when his tenure formally begins Jan. 4.

The economic ramifications were what many envisioned when acting commissioner Marty Evans rolled out the calendar carnage for all to peruse. The paper it was printed on should have distributed in shrink-wrap, because 2010 looks like it's three sizes too small.

Setting aside the bombast and bluster, the LPGA season next year will likely consist of 24 tournaments, the fewest since 21 were staged in both 1970 and '71, a rollback spanning nearly four decades as the tour prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary next year.

More alarmingly, only 13 of the tournaments will be staged in the United States, the smallest number ever. If it wasn't the LPGA, with that kind of minimalist American presence, they'd be calling it a mini-tour. A mini-tour with major underpinning issues.

"There is definitely room for more domestic events. It is fair for people to be concerned about that. But I would say that I think people in general are struggling with the globalization of the LPGA Tour," Whan told USA Today. "One of the things I'm going to try and do is help people to not only get over that trouble but to embrace globalization of the tour."

Out of sight, out of mind? Playing abroad means even less media attention in the States and mostly tape-delayed TV coverage as the Golf Channel becomes the tour's primary broadcaster in 2010. The '10 schedule includes six events before June and three-week gaps between tournaments -- the world's oldest women's tour just became a part-time job.

How many of the 24 events will actually come to fruition is anybody's guess, since last year at this time, now-deposed commissioner Carolyn Bivens addressed the media at the season finale and laid out a schedule with 31 events.

On the 2010 schedule released Wednesday, two are listed in Asian locales as "TBA," with no purses or sites denoted. That's shorthand for To Be Announced, of course, although To Be Axed is also a possibility. Of those 31 events Bivens listed for 2009, 27 were actually contested this year.

In 2007, the schedule had 31 events. It's not so much a trend as a full retreat.

So, you can see where this is all headed -- overseas and across the border, mostly. There are as many events in Mexico next year as there are in fan hotspots California (3), Texas (0) and Florida (0) combined.

The thing is, it's gotten so bad, even the players are bailing individually for greener pastures elsewhere. Three prominent veterans, envisioning the lack of playing dates on the U.S. tour, are teeing it up at the Japan LPGA Q-school in two weeks: Seon-Hwa Lee, In Bee Park and Candie Kung, all past winners.

This week's event in Houston is a textbook example that not all of the LPGA bloodshed is attributable to a bad economy. Some of it was sheer cluelessness, the H1N1 virus of the LPGA tour.

Twelve months ago, Bivens announced that the popular ADT event outside Miami, featuring a unique eight-player shootout in the final round for a $1 million first prize, was better suited as a season opener, not a grand finale featuring the top players on the money list.

So, how did that work out?

The tour instead created a season-ending LPGA Championship, signed Stanford Financial as the title sponsor, made it a full-field event and moved it to Houston, where it will be played for the first time this week. Now the radioactive part.

Allen Stanford, who wanted the tournament played in Houston, where his company has a large corporate presence, was tossed in jail. No replacement has been found to foot the title sponsorship bill, the format of the tournament has been criticized, and the event is running opposite the European Tour's big-money Race to Dubai finale. Nice timing.

As for Bivens' disastrous plan to re-launch the former ADT as a season opener in 2010, it's died with nary a whimper -- it's not on the schedule, which means one of the most interesting formats in golf was killed not so much by the economy, since ADT jumped ship largely as a result of the Bivens changes, but dunderheaded decision-making. Small wonder that top players staged a bloodless coup at midseason and ran her off.

The LPGA, in yet another sideways bit of marketing savvy, elected to stage Evans' press conference on Wednesday at the Sugar Land City Hall, off-campus from the site of its season finale. Maybe they hoped players wouldn't notice the details of the schedule if they handed it out elsewhere.

The crisis on the financial front isn't limited to the LPGA, mind you. Golf is brutally exposed right now. The PGA Tour's wildly successful event at Torrey Pines, a venue where Tiger Woods wins every time he shows up and Phil Mickelson plays every year, doesn't yet have a 2010 title sponsor after months of looking. If corporate America won't buy that premier product, with Phil and Lefty on the marquee at a scenic former U.S. Open venue, it ain't exactly a seller's market.

Five PGA Tour sponsors from 2009 (U.S. Bank, Legends hotel, Chrysler and two Buick stops) are gone already. The sponsors at Phoenix (FBR) and Hilton Head (Verizon) are leaving after their 2010 events end. Deals with another 10 sponsors or presenting sponsors expire after the '10 stagings (CA, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, John Deere. Morgan Stanley, Puerto Rico Tourism, Sony, Turning Stone, Viking and Wyndham) and those tournament futures are hardly certain. The LPGA frequently gets the leftovers, if there are any.

The officials attending the LPGA Tour Championship this week in Houston were unabashedly optimistic, since things could have been worse. Before Evans took over and rebuilt some bridges with alienated sponsors, the schedule and outlook were even leaner.

"I hope you'll agree that 24 tournaments is a great record, but more importantly I would say it's a platform to move forward, and that's what we needed was a momentum factor," Evans said. "It feels good today."

Hopefully, there won't be numbness tomorrow.