(Miles Flynn | Southern Indiana Business Report)
WEST BADEN SPRINGS — High atop Mount Airie, some of the biggest names in women’s golf are preparing to do battle for the Senior LPGA Championship. The 78-player field, including international superstars Laura Davies, Juli Inkster, Jan Stephenson, Hollis Stacy and Trish Johnson, will compete for a share of the $700,000 purse, with the winner slated to receive $105,000.
Tee times start at 9 a.m. Friday and Saturday, Aug. 27 and 28, with the final round scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 29.
Dave Harner, the resort’s director of golf, told Southern Indiana Business Report the athletes are happy to be back at French Lick Resort and that seeing them roll in has been like getting reacquainted with family. The event got its start, after all, right on the Pete Dye Course in 2017, a year before the U.S. Senior Women’s Open. “To be the first at anything in golf is pretty important,” Harner said.
The resort’s strong commitment to women’s golf goes back generations, however, and includes hosting the LPGA French Lick Open in 1958 and the LPGA Championship in 1959 and 1960.
Tickets for the big event are free and can be picked up at the main gate of the Pete Dye Course.
Economic impact
With the exception of 2020’s no-go event, the Senior LPGA Championship has provided French Lick Resort, along with all sorts of other area businesses, with a significant boost. “Every hotel here is full, ours and everybody else, including some Airbnbs and weekly rentals, as far out as Jasper and Bedford,” Harner said. “Restaurants, I’m sure, will be overflow. It’s good business for the region.”
Along with the players and spectators, the event’s bumper crop of approximately 180 volunteers also helps drive all of that activity. And many of the helpers return to French Lick events year after year. At one point, Harner shared, there was a 30-person waitlist of folks ready to lend a hand. “We have the best volunteers,” he said.
The event will also once again help Riley Hospital for Children. Each championship has raised at least $250,000 for the charity. “We’ve raised more than $1 million for Riley since we started working with them,” Harner noted.
Riley Kids get to play an active role in the proceedings, too, creating special memories for the children, spectators and even the players. Steve Rondinaro, who’s helped as master of ceremonies at many of French Lick Resort’s events for years, explained the children get to take turns on announcing duties to introduce the starters. “It’s great fun, and the ladies love it,” he said. “… That Riley connection has really made it special.”
Spectators can make their own donations to the cause when heading into the Pete Dye Course.
A banner year and a look ahead
The Senior LPGA Championship is just one part of a banner year for golf at French Lick Resort. In fact, golf revenues are up approximately 35% over numbers from 2019 — another record-setting year. Harner is sure the allure of safe fun during the time of COVID-19 has helped the sport greatly.
While the Senior LPGA’s commitment in French Lick is now complete, French Lick Resort golf will be back in the spotlight again next year with the return of the men’s Big 10 championship in April, which will be televised by the Big 10 Network, and the Indiana Men’s Amateur — last played here in 1922. “It only took 100 years to get them back,” Harner joked.
The biggest news for 2022, though, is the announcement of the new French Lick Resort Stroke Play Championship. The event is being created thanks to a three-year contract between the resort and the Symetra Tour — an organization whose mission is preparing the world’s best young women professional golfers for a successful career on the LPGA Tour.
The 72-hole French Lick Resort Stroke Play Championship will be played on the Pete Dye Course, with the largest purse and champion’s share in the Symetra Tour’s 41-year history. The total prize pool is $335,000, and $50,250 goes to the winner. The new event is a continuation of French Lick Resort’s relationship with the Symetra Tour, which included hosting tour events in four of the last five years.
The French Lick Resort Stroke Play Championship will be designated as the Symetra Tour’s “flagship event,” meaning it will receive the most Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings points of any tournament for the year. Its third and fourth rounds will also be featured on a live stream.
“We are grateful to partners like French Lick Resort who fully embrace the ‘Road to the LPGA’ mission of identifying the next generation of LPGA Tour stars,” said Mike Nichols, chief business officer of LPGA Qualifying Tours. “The Pete Dye Course has a tradition of hosting major championship golf. By elevating the tournament experience for the Symetra Tour, French Lick Resort sets an example for our current and future partners of how we can ally to support these professional athletes chasing their dreams.”