SPRINGDALE — Jay Allen hopes Jiyai Shin’s announcement that she’ll play in the P&G Beauty Northwest Arkansas Championship is the start of a slew of good news for the LPGA event.
This year’s Northwest Arkansas Championship will be held Sept. 10-12 at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers. Shin, the LPGA’s No. 1-ranked player, won the 2009 event as a rookie on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff.
“We’re real proud to have her back,” said Allen, the tournament director. “She clearly is a great player, but she is a delightful person, too.”
There is no question Shin has established herself among the tour’s top players. The South Korean has earned a tour-best $1,167,941 with eight top-10 finishes in 10 tournaments this season, including a victory at the Evian Masters on Sunday. She has four victories in her career and $2,924,974 in career earnings.
Shin reclaimed the top spot in the Rolex Rankings on Monday following her victory at the Evian Masters. She first moved to the top of the rankings May 3 following Lorena Ochoa’s retirement and remained there for seven weeks until emergency appendectomy surgery June 8 sidelined her for two tournaments and knocked her out of the top spot.
Allen said it is still early for many players to make firm commitments on when and where they’ll be playing in the fall, but he expects the Northwest Arkansas event will attract most of the top players on tour. Allen said he hopes that Shin’s commitment will cause other top players to do likewise.
Allen said many pros have been in contact with tournament officials to make travel and lodging arrangements even though they haven’t officially committed yet.
“We can’t control that,” Allen said. “We don’t want people to commit until they know for sure. It does create a focus and an energy.”
One other player publicly committed to the event is 15-year-old Alexis Thompson, who will receive a sponsor’s exemption. Thompson finished second behind Shin at the Evian Masters.
“Our tournament continues to get good marks from the players,” Allen said. “We expect to get all the top players, barring injuries. You don’t really know for sure until the last couple of weeks before the tournament.”
The tournament will have a purse of $2 million this year, with the winner receiving $300,000. That sizable purse has helped make the Northwest Arkansas Championship more attractive to the top players on tour.
The LPGA had a rough off-season, losing several tournaments as a result of mismanagement and the sour economy. Allen said that has made existing tournaments more important to players.
“We’re a tournament in the United States,” Allen said. “It does make the tournaments on the schedule all the more important.”
Sports, Pages 21 on 07/28/2010