A big shakeup with the ANA Inspiration — the LPGA’s 1st major championship of the season!
One of our favorite LPGA tournaments of all time, at one of our favorite venues in the world – Mission Hills CC in Rancho Mirage, CA, is more or less disappearing under the auspices of being rebranded and relocated. Boooo. Big time, boooooo!
I guess money talks, and Chevron, who will be stepping in as the presenting sponsor of the first major of the year starting in 2023 will be increasing the purse from $3.1M to $5M. Now that’s a lot of greenbacks, but Dinah in her grave can’t be happy.
I first played Mission Hills as a pimply 7th grader back in the 80’s. My family joined the club right after I turned 14, and my twin brother and I worked the tourney, inside the ropes all through HS. So seeing it disappear is disappointing to say the least.
The tournament is moving to Houston. So instead of the annual winner famously jumping into Poppie’s Pond with her caddy and full bag in tow, she’ll likely now be jumping into a brown, mucky Galveston estuary.
I’m going to soak up as much as I can of the 2022 Dinah. And then live off some great memories — like meeting the contestants when I was an awestruck junior golfer, playing the course the minute the tournament ended in 1996, or stealing pearlie new range balls while the sun was setting on the range. (I knew where to go hunting.)
Sad to see you go Dinah…
Here’s the full story compliments of Golf Digest. (click)