Taiwan may be included as a stop on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour next year if sponsors can be found to help finance a tournament that could carry a US$4 million price tag.
Eily Ho, manager of the Peitou Kuohua Golf County Club in Taipei, said she discussed the possibility of holding an LPGA tournament in Taiwan with LPGA officials on the sideline of the 2010 PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Florida earlier this month.
“They responded positively,” she said.
Ho has targeted Oct. 25, 2011, during the LPGA Tour’s yearly Asian swing in the fall, as the date for the tournament in Taiwan. She hopes to offer a purse as high as US$2 million, US$700,000 more than the US$1.3 million in prize money put up at the Honda PTT LPGA Thailand, which concluded on Sunday in Pattaya.
In addition to the prize money, another US$2 million is needed to finance the cost of holding the tournament, said Ho, who has begun looking for sponsors.
Taiwanese LPGA star Yani Tseng, who urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) last year to have the government sponsor an LPGA tournament in Taiwan, told the Central News Agency in Pattaya on Tuesday that she looked forward to a tour event being played in her home country.
Noting that the Honda PTT LPGA Thailand had brought together more than 30 of the top female golfers from around the world, Tseng said she was sure a tour stop in Taiwan would attract even more top players and spectators and enhance Taiwan’s profile significantly.
The LPGA Tour has been hit hard by the global economic downturn, with many sponsors dropping their support of women’s golf.
That has left many open dates for those interested in holding LPGA tournaments, but it has proven to be a tough sell in today’s difficult economic environment.
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