LPGA Tour takes centre stage in Las Vegas as PGA Tour plots future return

Nelly Korda poses with the trophy after winning the LPGA T-Mobile Match Play golf tournament Sunday, April 7, 2024, in North Las Vegas, Nev. (AP Photo/John Locher)

LAS VEGAS — Reigning Player of the Year and world No. 1 Nelly Korda is back in the Las Vegas area this week to defend her T-Mobile Match Play title.

The LPGA Tour event is Las Vegas’ star professional golf attraction of the year, especially since the PGA Tour won’t host a tournament in the city for the first time in more than four decades.

Dropping Las Vegas from the schedule — which occurred after Shriners Children’s Hospital ended its 18-year sponsorship in October — was a big blow to a city known as a golf destination for hackers and scratch players alike.

But it might not be a permanent setback.

The PGA Tour, in fact, hopes to return to the city with an early year event that attracts the sport’s top names. When that happens is unknown, and it won’t occur until at least 2027.

“Vegas is a market for big events,” said John Norris, senior vice president of PGA Tour tournaments. “They don’t do anything small. You got the major sports leagues there now. You’ve got the entertainers, world-class building in the Sphere. So what we thought was we want to be back in Vegas, but we want to do it with a big event.”

What that entails is uncertain.

Patrick Lindsey, the former Shriners Children’s Open executive director who last month became senior vice president and general manager of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, said some kind of all-star event would be one idea.

Like Norris, Lindsey said he expects the PGA Tour to do all it can to return to Las Vegas.

“I think that all options are going to be on the table for them when they look at what they want to do in this market,” Lindsey said. “This is kind of a niche market for us to do something fun and exciting and different. I think that’s how they need to look at this market, to take advantage of everything that is loud and colorful about Las Vegas.”

The calendar is a major impediment, however, and a top reason the PGA Tour is taking its time.

Shriners was played in the fall after the weather cooled in Las Vegas, but the major tournaments had been played by then and the NFL and college football seasons were in full swing. The tournament caught a break when the tour changed the schedule in 2013 to begin the season with the fall events, but the arrival of LIV Golf prompted the PGA Tour to overhaul the schedule two years ago. That included a return to starting the season in January.

Lindsey said top players routinely passed on fall events because they didn’t want to take away opportunities from those who needed the points for their tour card. Shriners was then left with less-than-desirable fields, and the charitable organization also began to pivot to sponsoring more college events.

That meant a reset for Las Vegas and the PGA Tour, and Norris said there is no appetite to play in the fall again. Playing in the summer when temperatures often top 110 degrees and even higher also is no option.

So that means trying to play earlier in the season, but there are plenty of tournaments that aren’t coming off schedule, such as the Masters, PGA Championship, The Players Championship and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

“That’s the tricky part,” Norris said.

The LPGA Tour is in Las Vegas for the fifth year with the Match Play, playing at the exclusive and remote Shadow Creek Golf Course that isn’t built for spectators because of its narrow walking paths. But Shadow Creek, with its lush green fairways, is a world-class course that draws players and celebrities from around the world.

“I feel like just the drive in is so unique and so beautiful,” Korda said Tuesday morning. “The property is really, really pretty. When you just stand on what was originally 18 tee — we’re playing it as 9 this week — it’s really breathtaking. It’s very demanding off the tee into the greens and even on the greens, so you have to be on 24/7. It tests every part of your game.”

The LPGA Tour didn’t make anyone available for a comment on its future with Las Vegas, but released a statement that said its sponsors were “all great advocates for the LPGA Tour.”

Korda hopes to repeat her tournament victory when the Match Play begins Wednesday, and the current face of women’s golf likely would bring more attention to the event if she wins.

The PGA Tour has had its bright moments in Las Vegas, none greater than in 1996 when a 20-year-old Tiger Woods won his first professional tournament. The city was at the centre of the golf world on that Sunday. Woods’ victory even took attention away from the NFL games being played that day.

Maybe the PGA Tour will eventually be back with more such moments.

“I just believe that this city, the market, people who live here deserve a professional golf event here,” Lindsey said. “They deserve to be something maybe different than what’s going on in other markets.”

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Mark Anderson, The Associated Press