Women’s pro golf has had storied history in Las Vegas

Adam Candee

Monday, April 14, 2003 | 9:41 a.m.

IF YOU GO

The Stardust, Desert Inn, Sahara and Canyon Gate hosted them. Sealy, Faberge, ITT, PageNet and all those hotels sponsored them.

Nancy Lopez took the Sahara National Pro-Am, Donna Caponi claimed the LPGA National Pro-Am and Lopez won again at the J&B Scotch Pro-Am -- all in four years.

Yet in the 40 years since Judy Kimball shot 4-under to win the $2,300 first-place purse of 1962 LPGA Championship at Stardust Country Club, none of the 12 incarnations of a women's professional golf tournament in Las Vegas survived. In fact, none even made it beyond five years and there have been four absences of at least two years.

The LPGA Takefuji Classic, armed with a three-year sponsor commitment to Las Vegas and the selling power of Annika Sorenstam's approaching PGA Tour date, tees off Thursday morning at Las Vegas Country Club with cautious optimism that it can beat daunting odds.

"It's like growing a flower," tournament director Jim Webb said. "It starts out little and you have to feed it and nourish it and hope it grows."

Webb recently retired as LPGA deputy commissioner and has played gardener to his desert flower since October. This year's tournament is likely to be a financial failure, Webb understands, but he views it as the foundation of future success.

"In three years, you ought to be able to build an event where you don't lose money each year," Webb said.

This is Las Vegas, though, and these are sports. Even in the best times, the marriage between the two is tenuous and usually based on something more than the game or match itself.

"You've got to bring in The (Famous) Chicken or shoot off the fireworks," said Charlie Baron, longtime tournament manager of Las Vegas' PGA event. "The key is to make it a happening."

Invensys dropped the PGA event this year, leaving Baron in pressing need of a sponsor. Such problems have consistenly forced the LPGA to abandon Las Vegas, as low public turnout and changing financial times created a carousel of sponsors.

"Things change as to what (sponsors are) trying to accomplish, and then they leave," Webb said.

Webb, who attended every Las Vegas LPGA event since 1982, said that every time the ladies leave town, a cycle perpetuates -- every new tournament starts from a financial square one that necessitates immediate success, yet the lack of consistency creates public apathy and ensuing sponsor trepidation that causes financial problems.

"A tournament that's been around three or four years, they haven't put away enough money to go it alone for a year (if a title sponsor drops out)," Webb said.

Webb feels that revolving door can stop with Takefuji. The Japanese financial giant moved its tournament to Las Vegas from Hawaii, bringing the LPGA back to the Valley for the first time since 1999.

Takefuji runs the tournament on a Thursday-Saturday format to accommodate Japanese TV and maximize its home audience, as the event airs Friday-Sunday in Japan. By committing $1.1 million purse and $165,000 winner's share, along with that three-year contract, Takefuji appears serious about Las Vegas.

"That's going to make it happen as long as the sponsor is achieving its goals and objectives," Baron said. "I think the question is if the community wants it. Does Las Vegas want to be a major league city?"

Baron said the emergence of casino conglomerates such as Park Place and MGM Mirage only complicates the battle of selling pro-am spots and sponsorships. Once able to draw on a number of Strip sponsors, tournament officials only have a handful of targets in the city's most lucrative base.

"The business of casinos today has changed drastically in the past 20 or 30 years," Baron said.

Even when local LPGA events had sponsors, crowds were sparse. That situation may not improve this year, considering many families are out of town over the school district's spring break and the tourism base that drives successful local sporting events such as NASCAR may be reduced with the Easter and Passover holidays this week.

There is some hope that holding the event near the Strip will draw some walk-up crowds, and with Sorenstam, the tournament may draw some interested in seeing the girl who wants to play with the boys.

Sorenstam, the world's No. 1 female golfer, will compete in the PGA Tour's upcoming Colonial, the first time in the modern era that a woman will play in a PGA event.

Sorenstam won 11 times on tour last year, but her decision to step into the PGA fray brought the spotlight to women's golf.

"Hopefully we will get some people that will want to just come and see Annika," Webb said. "Annika is the one who is winning all the events."