U.S. Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour final adds CME Group as a title sponsor – Golf update
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group, a American company that deals with stock exchange management, has signed a three year contract with the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) season-ending inaugural Titleholders tournament in Florida. The
newly announced US $1.5 million event will be held from 17 to 20 November at the Grand Cypress Golf Club in Orlando.
The CME group largely possesses the financial indexes and future exchanges in Chicago and New York. It also owns the Dow Jones stock. The CME group has a history of supporting golf and golf related events. The trading group has hosted a number of pro-am
tournaments and also sponsored the Ryder Cup format, Solheim Cup in 2009. "We have had such tremendous success with the LPGA in the past through our Global Financial Leadership Conference that we are thrilled to partner with them again," CME Group executive
chairman Terry Duffy said in a statement.
LPGA’s deal with CME for the Titleholders tournament, previously known as LPGA’s Tour Championship, is being optimistically viewed as a new hope for getting Ladies Golf out of financial troubles. “CME Group has been a friend of the LPGA for years," LPGA
Commissioner Mike Whan said, "and our players' experiences with them proved that they are innovators and know how to run first-class dynamic events. Each tournament week, we'll talk about who is 'in' the CME Group Titleholders," Whan added. "It truly will
be a celebration of all the title sponsors who make the LPGA so special." LPGA succumbed to the global economic meltdown and failed to keep the sponsorships alive for a number of events. Recently, State Farm Insurance dropped its 19-year old sponsorship for
the US $1.7 million tournament in Springfield, Illinois.
The Titleholders is a fresh idea, which has a unique format comprising of elite in-form golfers for a full-field of 75 players. The top three finishers from every LPGA event of the year will automatically qualify for the CME Group Titleholders. The world
number one, Yani Tseng of Taiwan, the Hall of famer Karrie Webb of Australia and Michelle Wie of the United States have advanced to the tournament as the top three finishers at the Honda LPGA Thailand. The other players to have qualified for the season-ender
include, South Korean Sun Young Yoo, American Morgan Pressel and Na-Yeon Choi of South Korea. 69 other players will be finalized out of the 25 scheduled LPGA events in 13 countries in 2011.
The unique concept of the CME Group Titleholders format is reported to have invented by the LPGA commissioner Mike Whan.
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