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From News-Press.com
The LPGA Tour has scheduled a press conference for Thursday at TwinEagles in North Naples, where it is expected to announce the anticipated move of its tour championship to Southwest Florida in November, 2012. The News-Press previously confirmed the expected move of the tour championship, first reported by Golfweek, with course representatives. The tour championship was renamed the CME Group Titleholders for this year’s installment next month in Orlando in recognition of the one-time major championship of the same name. The event also was reformatted this year to spur interest. LPGA commissioner Michael Whan, LPGA member Morgan Pressel and Steve Smyers, architect of TwinEagles’ redesigned second layout that will host the Titleholders, headline those announced to attend the press conference. Next week’s press conference also coincides with an annual, three-day financial conference that Titleholders sponsor CME Group hosts at the Ritz-Carlton Beach Resort in Naples. The annual gathering regularly includes LPGA Tour members in its golf outings. CME Group, also sponsor of the 2009 Solheim Cup, has a three-year contract as title sponsor of the Titleholders. The company derives its name from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which CME Group executive chairman Terry Duffy told Golfweek “trade(s) more in the first three weeks of the month of January than the New York Stock Exchange does in an entire year.” The original Titleholders, won in its inaugural year in 1937 by late, LPGA Tour Hall of Famer Patty Berg of Fort Myers, was conducted 28 times before it folded in the 1960s. Berg won the event seven times on her way to 15 major championship titles, the most in women's golf. The field for this year’s event at Grand Cypress was trimmed from 120 players a year ago to a maximum of 69. Only the top three finishers in events throughout the season qualify for the Titleholders. Preseel, world No. 1 Yani Tseng, Paula Creamer, Brittany Lincicome, Michelle Wie, Karrie Webb and Ai Miyazato are among those already qualified. Perhaps more significantly, this year's first prize of $500,000 is second only to the U.S. Women's Open. A move of the Titleholders to Southwest Florida would give the area eventrs on the three leading U.S.-based tours, with TwinEagles home for two of them. The PGA Tour's Franklin Templeton Shootout is held in December at Tiburon Golf Club in North Naples, and the Champions Tour's The ACE Group Classic is returning to TwinEagles in February after a six-year hiatus elsewhere in the area. The ACE Classic will be held on TwinEagles’ Talon Course, co-designed by Jack Nicklaus and son Jack II, while the Titleholders would be held on the redesigned Eagle Course, scheduled to open in December. The Titleholders would be the sixth different LPGA Tour event to be held in Southwest Florida. The tour last visited Southwest Florida with the Naples LPGA Memorial from 1999-2001 at The Strand in North Naples before losing its host venue and title sponsor, Subaru. Also held in Southwest Florida were the Naples Pro-Am/Professional from 1961-63 at Naples Beach Club, Sarah Coventry Naples-Lely Classic from 1973-76, Bill Branch/Greater Fort Myers LPGA Classic at defunct Lochmoor from 1974-75 and World Championship of Women's Golf at Naples National in 1993-94. Pressel recently was announced as partner to retired World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam for the ADT Skills Challenge, Nov. 7 at The Breakers in Palm Beach. The event, which won’t be televised until Dec. 24-25 on NBC, will be Sorenstam’s first since retiring after the 2008 season. http://www.news-press.com/article/20...ll|text|Home|s |
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