MIAMI • The LPGA’s season-ending Tour Championship will be without two of this year’s Major winners, Women’s British Open champion Sophia Popov of Germany and newly crowned US Women’s Open champion Kim A-lim of South Korea.
The field for this weekend’s season finale, set to begin today at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Florida, was expanded from 60 to 72 players due to the coronavirus pandemic and is based on a season-long points competition, the Race to the CME Globe.
LPGA members accumulate points in every official tour event to gain entry into the season-ending Tour Championship.
Two of those spots went to two sponsor exemptions, which did not include Popov or Kim because they were not official LPGA members at the time of their wins and did not receive the points.
On Sarah Kemp and Natalie Gulbis taking their places, Popov told Golfweek: “It’s a fairness thing, as far as playing ability.”
The 28-year-old, who recently bought a home in Naples, finished 82nd in the standings but would have been 16th if the points from her Major victory had counted.
“It’s not like I haven’t earned it,” she added. “It’s like I have earned it points-wise, technically.”
Terry Duffy, CME Group chairman and chief executive, told Golfweek he chose Gulbis because she was instrumental in his decision to title-sponsor the event.
Duffy explained that originally, he wanted the two sponsor exemptions to go to CME’s two ambassadors – Cheyenne Knight and Australia’s Kemp.
When American Knight qualified on her own, he chose Gulbis because of their longstanding association dating back to 2005.
At the start of this year, the 37-year-old announced she would retire at the end of the season, although she has since said her swansong will actually be next term.
“I think it would have been a bittersweet last year,” said Gulbis, who has missed five cuts from six starts this season.
The American has won just once since joining the LPGA Tour in 2002 – at the 2007 Evian Masters.
All 72 players in the field will compete in the 72-hole, no-cut competition, which features a US$3 million (S$4 million) purse with US$1.1 million going to the winner, marking the largest winner’s prize this year.
“The decision to add sponsor exemptions for the CME Group Tour Championship is for this year only,” said LPGA chief tour operations officer Heather Daly-Donofrio, who noted that sponsor-exemption decisions are at the discretion of each week’s title sponsor, without input from the LPGA.
“In this abnormal year, the Tour Championship is slightly different than the past,” she added.
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LPGA TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP
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