LPGA controversy dogs U.S. Women’s Open

Cleveland Examiner ^ | 7-9-9 | Emily Kay

[Brookhaven]

As the best female golfers on the planet tee off at the U.S. Women’s Open in Bethlehem, PA, many viewers will not be tuning in to enjoy Lorena Ochoa’s fluid swing, Paula Creamer’s short game, or root on New Englanders Alison Walshe, Brittany Altomare, Anna Grzebien, and Briana Vega. They will instead be ogling the ongoing soap opera that the LPGA has become.

There are many reasons for concern about the women’s golf tour. The lousy economy and unpopular leadership style of Commissioner Carolyn Bivens are culprits one and two. Golf World’s Ron Sirak reports that five of the seven players on the LPGA board of directors want to oust Bivens, and player Suzann Pettersen has gone public with her dissent. So it seems safe to assume Bivens’ days with the tour are numbered.

Mutiny on the golf course. Golfweek’s Beth Ann Baldry reports that leading LPGA players -- including Ochoa, Creamer, Morgan Pressel, Cristie Kerr, and Natalie Gulbis -- met July 2 to discuss the tour’s ever-shrinking schedule and their lack of confidence in Bivens. Several participants sent a letter to the LPGA board of directors asking Bivens to resign.

The timing of the players’ mutiny could not have been worse. Speculation about Bivens’ imminent “resignation” now overshadows the premier event on the women’s golf schedule. Too bad the players did not air their grievances earlier, as sponsors began falling away, or wait until, as Sirak calls it, the “media black hole” following the Open. The next U.S. women's tournament is not until mid-August.

Tight-lipped. Players, as well as the Tournament Owners Association, say they are leaving the matter up to the board. Trying to keep a lid on things, the LPGA shut down the sports-news ticker on its Web page shortly after word of the players’ resignation demands began scrolling.

Like no one would notice?

“You can rest assured that the LPGA and its Board of Directors considers any topic raised by the players seriously since we are a player organization,” says LPGA spokesperson David Higdon in an email. “There are always differences of opinion on business matters, and as they arise, we resolve them as best we can in order to further the business of the LPGA.”

Most of the players who helped roil the tsunami of protest last week are now mum on the issue. Kerr began a USGA news conference by reading from a prepared statement in which she said she has “no official capacity” to “comment on matters pertaining to the LPGA operations.” Instead, she invited reporters to ask about her golf and “wine making.”

Wine making? Really?

Pettersen tells Baldry that the letter spoke for “the majority of players,” and that by signing she was “standing up for our tour.” But Christina Kim, a player director on the board, says the LPGA problems are not “due to any one person or occurrence,” according to Baldry. And retired player Rosie Jones tells Baldry that canning Bivens may not solve the LPGA’s problems.

Sirak believes the “situation” will be resolved by Monday. “To move forward,” he writes in a Twitter posting, “must be done deal.” But with Bivens an apparent no-show at the Open, perhaps the continuing drama will finally take a back seat to the real show -- spectacular golf at a championship venue.

Can we just play golf? At 6,740 yards and playing to a par of 71, Saucon Valley Country Club is a challenge for even the best women golfers. It certainly favors long, accurate ball strikers. Observers believe that two par-4 holes, 10 and 15, may be drivable, at least during the final round, when 15 will play at 257 yards.

Six-foot-wide swaths of intermediate rough set to 1.5 inches border either side of the fairways, which are 25 yards to 35 yards wide. The greens will be fun (for viewers, anyway), running at about 12 to 12.5 on the Stimpmeter. And with a course rating of 79.8 and slope of 145, Saucon Valley sets up as a rigorous test for the 156 players teeing off today.

The field includes 31 players who earned their way through qualifying rounds, and 28 amateurs. Only 60 will make the cut. Marquee players Gulbis and Michelle Wie are not playing this week, having failed to qualify. But a testament to the present and future of women’s golf, as Golfweek’s James Achenbach points out, are the 33 players who are teenagers and 10 who are in their 40s.

Your U.S. Women’s Open leaders, at 1-under after eight holes, include Kerr, Mika Miyazato, Eun Hee Ji, and Hee Young Park. New England golfers Vega and Altomare are one over after four, and two over after five holes, respectively. Walshe and Grzebien tee off this afternoon. Click here for the full leaderboard and individual players’ scorecards.

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Former LPGA player Jan Stephenson, who let it be known this week she would love to replace Bivens as commissioner, once was properly excoriated for saying publicly that Asians were “killing women’s golf” and calling for quotas to limit their number on the LPGA Tour. She later apologized, saying she “did not intend to make it a racial issue.”

The LPGA does not need a commissioner who apologizes for being correct.