The LPGA Tour is returning to the San Francisco Bay Area next month for what will be known as the LPGA Mediheal Championship, tournament officials announced on Monday.
Mediheal, a Korean skin-care company, signed a three-year agreement to serve as title sponsor for the event on April 26-29 at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City, on the outskirts of San Francisco.
“We are excited to be hosting our championship, in partnership with the LPGA Tour, in the Bay Area,” said Oh-sub Kwon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mediheal.
“In recent years we have made major investments into women’s golf and will look to build upon that here at the beautiful Lake Merced Golf Club. The LPGA Tour has been on such an upward trend in recent years and we are proud to associate our company with them.”
The 6,925-yard, par-72 course at Lake Merced was designed by Willie Lock of Scotland on coastal sand dunes, and later underwent renovations by no less than famed architects Alister MacKenzie and Rees Jones.
Lake Merced, which hosted the LPGA Tour’s Swinging Skirts Classic from 2014-16, has spruced up the classic course and tournament officials will flip the front and back nines for the tournament.
“We just feel it’s a better route,” Executive Director Andy Bush of Octagon, which manages the tournament, told the San Francisco Chronicle of the decision to reverse the nines.“ … The other par-5 (regularly No. 18) is a three-shot hole, but we’ll have chance to move the tees and give players a chance to reach the tournament No. 18 in two.
“ … This year is about getting the LPGA re-established in San Francisco. Then we’ll start building programs the day the event ends, so it’s here for the long-term.”
Lake Merced officials already addressed one concern of the LPGA Tour, reworking the
greens on what are the fourth and eighth holes, which will be part of the back nine for the tournament. That change allows for a wider variety of hole locations on those greens.
The Swinging Skirts drew strong fields during its existence and the new tournament is expected to do so again because the players enjoy classic, tree-lined Lake Merced course, and they also love being close to cosmopolitan San Francisco.
Lydia Ko of New Zealand won the Swinging Skirts the first two years at Lake Merced and Haru Nomura of Japan took the title in 2016.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who died suddenly in December, was a big supporter of women’s golf and successfully lobbied Whan to bring the LPGA Tour back to the Bay Area.
