The Ladies Professional Golf Association will open its 2022 schedule right here in Florida. Headquartered in Daytona Beach, the LPGA will provide Florida residents and snowbirds three weeks of championship golf starting at the Lake Nona Golf & Country Club in Orlando. The Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions will be played January 20-23 featuring two simultaneous 72-hole competitions. The LPGA Champions from the past two seasons will compete in stroke play for a $1.5 million purse while a roster of world-class celebrities competes for their own $500,000. The celebrity participants, the LPGA Tour Professionals, and visiting guests will be hosted at Hilton Grand Vacations best-in-class Central Florida resorts continuing the luxury experience away from the Tom Fazio-designed and impeccably maintained Lake Nona championship golf course. Orlando resident Aaron Stewart, Payne’s son, is the Tournament Director. For more information please visit HGVLPGA.com.
The next week the ladies visit southeast Florida to compete in the Gainbridge LPGA that will be contested on the immaculate Robert Von Hagge-designed Boca Rio Golf Club in Boca Raton that opened in 1967. A strong field of the top LPGA players will try and kick-start their year with a win for a sizable portion of the $2 million purse. Baptist Health, the largest healthcare provider in the tri-county area, has signed on to partner as a presenting sponsor. Our friends at Outlyr, a global sports, events management company, will make this championship a memorable one for players, sponsors, and the viewing public to enjoy January 24-30. Please visit GainbridgeLPGA.com for more information.
And finally, the ladies cross the state to play the 54 hole competition LPGA Drive On Championship at Fort Myers’ finest gated golf community, Crown Colony Golf & Country Club. The vast 403-acre enclave is home to a beautiful Ron Garl strategically designed classic 18 hole championship golf course that will test the best LPGA players for a piece of a $1.5 million purse February 3-5. Visit LPGA.com/DriveOn for more information.
“We are excited to kick off our 2022 LPGA season with three consecutive events in Florida, with the opening swing concluding in Ft. Myers on a worthy setting as Crown Colony G&CC,” said Ricki Lasky, the LPGA’s Chief Tournament Business Officer.
Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan added, “There is a groundswell of support for women’s golf around the world. And the LPGA is leading the way through our Tour competitions with the largest purses in the history of the women’s game, our more than 1,800 LPGA Professionals who are teaching and growing the game of golf on a daily basis, the LPGA Foundation that is dedicated to providing access to golf in historically underserved communities, LPGA-USGA Girls Golf, the fastest growing program in the game today with more than 90,000 girls participating at 520 sites around the world, and our LPGA Amateurs, 13,000 strong.”
If you love golf and are in Florida, please come out and enjoy the best of the best golfers in the world competing at the highest level while raising money for local charities. Go Watch and Enjoy!
