Women’s PGA Championship Gets Hot Future Venues

By Elizabeth Bethel | Aug 14, 2015

After a successful 2015 debut at Westchester Country Club the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship is hitting the road. The Championship will be contended in the Pacitic Northwest in 2016 and then go to the Chicago area for a two-year run in 2017 and 2018.

There was considerable quiet hand-wringing and backward-looking last year when the Tour announced a major change to the LPGA Championship. Change is never smooth or easy. A new partnership with the PGA of America and KPMG that would drive the transformation of the LPGA Championship into the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship meant the end of a long-standing partnership with the Rochester community.

Read More on Rochester’s Farewell to the LPGA Championship

KPMG came on board with the stipulation that the event would move from its cherished Rochester home to larger markets and the new event made its 2015 debut at Westchester Country Club. Even amid some subtle head shakes Stacy Lewis was thinking like a founder when she observed that women’s golf needed to start contending on courses that are on par with those that host men’s pro events. Westchester was the right starting point.

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This wasn’t a particularly new notion. After all, the RICOH Women’s British Open has always been played on courses with the highest pedigree, and the 2014 US Women’s Open was headed for Pinehurst #2, the Cradle of American Golf, at the time of the USGA-LPGA announcement.

Now PGA of America President Derek Sprague has announced that the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship will be contended in the Chicago area at the Olympia Fields Country Club in 2017 and Kemper Lakes Golf Club in 2018.

Stacy Lewis is again delighted. These two tracks contain everything Lewis has said the Championship needs to get on par with the men’s events. Olympia Fields and Kemper Lakes are the perfect follow-on to the Championship’s 2016 venue, Sahalee Country Club, which has hosted both the PGA Championship and the Senior US Open.

Chicago’s a golfing kind of place and Lewis says the Chicago area already has good vibes for women’s golf.

"“You look at those two venues, one, you’ve got the Chicago area, where we got some of our biggest crowds from Solheim Cup (2009) and International Crown will be there.”"

Olympia Fields has hosted two US Opens, two PGA Championships, five Western Opens and a US Senior Open. The likes of Walter Hagen, Johnny Farrell, Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead and Jim Furyk have hoisted trophies on the 18th green of the North Course.

Kemper Lakes boasts an equivalent golf pedigree, four times hosting the PGA’s Grand Slam of Golf as well as the PGA Championship and the US Women’s Amateur and US Women’s Public Links Championships.

Lewis is correct in her claim that great tracks produce great golf and the opportunity to contend on those courses elevates the women’s game. Still, moving the women’s events to venues that are equivalent to the men’s is only half the battle for equity.

In golf, as in life, equality in winnings is the right counterbalance to an equitable playing field. As I see it, the PGA of America needs also to narrow the gap between the $10 million dollar 2015 PGA Championship purse and $3.5 million dollar 2015 Women’s PGA Championship purse. Let’s face the facts. When it comes to winnings-as-wages, in 2015 the gender gap in golf is greater than in the traditional professions and among hourly waged workers in the United States.

Next: Olympic Games Schedule Snarl

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