Toledo Blade columnist Dave Hackenberg takes some LPGA players to task for skipping the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic this week.
With such a shrunken schedule this year, the thinking was that nearly every LPGA event would boast all the best players.
That’s not the case in Toledo, where just one of the top seven players in the world (Jiyai Shin) showed up to play.
Here’s Hackenberg’s take:
One year after helping save the Farr with a players revolt hatched here in our fair city that toppled a commissioner and changed the tour’s way of doing business, a lot of very good golfers are now ignoring the Farr . . .
The 26th edition of the tournament goes to the starting gate this morning at Highland Meadows, one week after the LPGA Championship, one week before the U.S. Women’s Open, and with a purse 400,000 dollar bills light from a year ago.
‘It happens,’ Morgan Pressel (who is playing) said yesterday. ‘It’s a tough spot on the schedule, so it’s hard to avoid and it shouldn’t be hard to understand. It’s unfortunate for the event, but if you look at the tour schedule, no TV, and the smaller purse, it’s going to happen” . . .
But looking back one year, with domestic tournaments dropping from the LPGA schedule like flies as sponsors bailed in a bad economy, the players literally begged for change and for a lifeline.
Owens Corning, Kroger and other sponsors of the Farr did all they could in tough times to keep the tournament alive for 2010.
Despite all the challenges associated with playing this particular event in this particular week, it would have been nice if more of the top players had showed up to say thank you.
