Web sportznutz.com

The 19^th Hole

November 18, 2007

One Last Payday

The LPGA Tour season concluded today with the final round of the ADT Championship.  The format of the tournament is probably the most unique in professional golf.  It begins with 30 players assembled based upon qualifying criteria of points and winners of certain key tournaments.  The thirty then play stroke play for two rounds.  The top sixteen players go on to the third round on Saturday.  That is a standard cut. 

Then the wackiness happens.  If there are more than sixteen players within the cut line on Friday, there is a sudden death playoff amongst those on the tie line to determine who makes it and who does not.  Only sixteen players exactly will make it to Saturday and the playoff continues until that is achieved.

On Saturday, the sixteen remaining players start with a blank slate for a one day shootout.  The top eight players then advance to the Sunday final round.  The same sudden death system applies.

The final round is another one round shootout.  The prize for winning in this quirky format is the biggest in women’s golf – a cool million dollars. 

The tournament format has a lot of support for the golf community.  For one, it is a unique tournament format.  Tournament golf has always been seen as a format geared to identifying the best player over four days.  This tournament does that, but does not allow for the eventual champion to have an off round.  Every round matters.  Every shot matters.  When Annika Sorenstam got into a three-for-two playoff on Friday to extend her season, the drama was stronger than you could ever normally expect on day two of a golf tournament.

The prize of a million dollars to the winner is also a big point of interest.  The LPGA Tour knows it too, because they flaunted a glass case with what appeared to be a million dollars in it on the first tee on Sunday.  I am sure Phil Mickelson gets a kick out of seeing the LPGA Tour implement his idea for the FedEx Cup money – even if on a smaller scale.

The drama of a million dollar payday is compelling enough.  Adding to it, though, is the fact that the runner up gets one-tenth of that as consolation.  Winning, then, means a whole lot in this event.  There has been a lot of complaining that players do not play to win anymore, especially on the PGA Tour, where there is so much money available that players could have a million dollar season sporting a resume with lots of top 20 finishes.  Knowing the pay scale and that the first place prize is almost double the largest on the rest of the LPGA Tour schedule really adds to the quality of play and the natural excitement.   

The format also allows the LPGA Tour to feature its best players from that season in a tournament.  On Saturday, viewers that may not have been familiar with the LPGA Tour were treated to seeing what sixteen of the Tour’s best are made of in a high pressure situation.  The same was true on network TV on Sunday, but with half of the field.  The players can get the focus fans have come to expect from the Skins Game, but with some real intrigue and passion that is clearly missing from other events at this time of the year.

The combination of all of these factors makes the champion almost irrelevant because the event is so exciting regardless of who is in the fray.  It certainly did not hurt, though, that the best female player in the world turned out to win her eighth event of the year.  Lorena Ochoa toppled the $4 million mark for the season with the win – one-quarter of that coming over four days.  Still, the season finale put Ochoa into rarified air in terms of money and tournament performance.  She proved that she is better than every player on the LPGA Tour in any format that could be put in front of her.  After a season in which she established herself as the future face of LPGA Tour dominance, it only seemed fitting that she was paid off for doing so.

The end of the LPGA Tour also marks the beginning of my off-season.  I will be taking a break from now until January, when the PGA Tour season begins anew in Hawaii.  It was a great year of golf and I want to thank you for sharing in it with me – as a reader, a critic, or a target.  Have a wonderful holiday season!

Ryan Ballengee is the operator of The Golf News Network and host of The 19^th Hole Golf Show and LPGA on GNN.  Having graduated from the University of Maryland in 2004 and 2006, Ballengee brings the perspective of the younger golf fan to the microphone and his columns.  Over the nearly five years he has been broadcasting and writing, Ballengee has developed a reputation for a unique interviewing style that asks both the difficult and fun questions. He can be reached at ryan@thegolfnewsnet.com.