Anna Nordqvist from Sweden holds her trophy after winning the Evian Championship last week.
Atlanta: In the five years since the LPGA Tour decided that the Evian Championship would be a major, the debate over its status has received as much attention as the winners. The latest edition raised even more questions.
The first round was washed out by rain and raging wind, meaning Sung Hyun Park effectively got a really big mulligan. She was 6 over when the round was scrapped and started over with a 63 the next day. That’s not worthy of an asterisk. It has happened before and it was the most equitable decision.
More disturbing was a “major” contested over 54 holes, a decision the LPGA reached with alarming swiftness. The LPGA Tour is off this week before going to New Zealand, so it’s not as though another tournament had to be considered.
Heather Daly-Donofrio, the LPGA’s communications and operations officer, said rain was in the forecast through Tuesday. Workers had to use squeegees on the 18th green during the playoff on Sunday.
“Monday was never taken off the table,” she said from France. “We really anticipated we might need Monday to complete 54 holes. It gave us the best chance for a compelling championship.”
Only three majors have been contested over 54 holes dating to 1892 (the first year the British Open went to 72 holes). All of them were on the LPGA Tour.
The first was at the LPGA Championship in 1996 when rain turned already soggy DuPont Country Club into a swamp and they were lucky to get in 54 holes.
Tournament organizers wanted a Sunday finish in 1996 because it was on network TV (CBS), and because the hundreds of volunteers needed to stage the tournament might not have been available on Monday.
The other 54-hole major also was at Evian in 2013, its first year as a major, when the soil on a rebuilt course couldn’t handle the hard rain.
More of a “major” issue that year was the very idea that the LPGA could declare a regular tournament a Grand Slam event. Evian had been on the schedule since 2000.
That became a problem when Inbee Park headed to the Women’s British Open at St Andrews trying to sweep the year’s majors. No one ever had won a calendar Grand Slam of professional majors. But would it be a Grand Slam if there were five majors?
Park never contended at St Andrews, but the Evian issue took away from her bid for a Grand Slam.
At some point, the LPGA Tour has to ask itself if the decision to create a fifth major is worth the trouble.
