Wednesdays at a professional golf tournament are not something that the fans usually experience. Before the applause and cheers of the competition rounds there is a buzz of activity and lots of quiet hustle and bustle. Players and caddies are arriving; if there is a pro-am event (an important networking and fund-raising activity, especially for smaller tournaments) there will be amateur players, local celebrities or business people, arriving for that – it’s a subtle, humming beehive of low-key activity, a prelude to the real thing.
Even after 14 years of attending a wide range of these events – from U.S. Men’s and Women’s Opens to USGA Junior Amateur championships, it’s always interesting to me to see the practiced, professional way that the people behind the event go about their business. Everything from course care and set up to catering, and everything in between: parking, hospitality, media infrastructure – it is a huge logistical undertaking. All of this activity is in support of a field of 120 players vying for a spot in the Top-60-and-ties field that plays the weekend for a paycheck, and the fans who come to watch them vie against the course and each other.
This tournament has a special spirit, honoring as it does the thirteen original founders of the LPGA, the pioneering women who started it all in 1950, barnstorming across the country in their own cars, hustling up sponsors and venues, sometimes playing for prizes of canned goods and household items – a far cry from the cash purses of the current tour. Though worlds removed from the purses on the PGA Tour, the modern LPGA Tour has come a long way from the days of car caravans and playing for canned goods. In a quick press conference this morning after her nine-hole appearance in today’s pro-am event, New Zealand’s Lydia Ko, when asked to comment on the meaning of the event and its recognition of the founders, said, “It’s our duty to carry the Founders’ spirit”, and characterized event honorees Meg Mallon and Juli Inkster as the “cool aunts” of the current generation of LPGA players. It is a special feeling that is unique in professional golf – the sense of gratitude and recognition that pervades the LPGA’s organization and membership.
The venue for this event, Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club in Menlo Park, is an attraction, too. Tucked away in the angle formed by I-280 and Sand Hill Road in the lower Peninsula, this private club and its hilly, circuitous golf course will be a new experience for the players, and is likely to be unfamiliar to the majority of the fans that come out to watch the event, too.
The course at Sharon Heights was designed in 1962 by well-known Bay Area/NorCal architect Jack Fleming*, a protégé of Alister MacKenzie. Extensive renovations in 2023, carried out by architect Todd Eckenrode and Origins Golf Design, removed hundreds of non-native trees, but the course still features MacKenzie-style bunkers, sweeping fairways with an abundance of challenging lies, and 18 subtly devious greens. The next four days will be a great test of the skill and endurance of the players in the field, and a testament to the enduring spirit of gratitude and recognition that the Founders Cup embodies.
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