Samsung World Championship tickets on sale in May

BY iseekgolf.com | LPGA Tour | 2004 Samsung World Championship | General | 11 Apr 2004

Tickets for the Samsung World Championship will go on sale on Monday, May 10 with ticket packages and pricing to be announced. The Canyons Course at BIGHORN Golf Club in Palm Desert will host the Championship for the first time, October 14 – 17, 2004.

The elite 20-player field is already taking shape with the addition of 14-year-old amateur Michelle Wie. Wie has accepted a Championship Selection Committee invitation to compete among the world’s best. To date, the field includes defending champion Sophie Gustafson, 2003 Vare Trophy winner Se Ri Pak, 2003 LPGA Tour Player of the Year Annika Sorenstam and this year’s Kraft Nabisco Champion, Grace Park.

Sorenstam, who recently captured her 50th LPGA Tour title in Los Angeles, has won three of the four tournaments she entered this season, including the Australian Ladies Masters in February.

Additional entries will be awarded to the winners of the three remaining LPGA Tour major championships (McDonald’s LPGA Championship, the U.S. Women’s Open and the Weetabix Women’s British Open), to the leading player from the Ladies European Tour (LET) and to the leading money winners from this year’s LPGA Tour money list.

Wie will be the seventh amateur to appear in the Samsung World Championship when she tees it up this fall. She joins a group that includes Park, who competed as an amateur in 1998 and finished tied for sixth, and Juli Inkster, who competed twice as an amateur (1980 & ’81). The other amateurs who have competed are Akiko Fukushima (1991), Kay Cockerill (1987), Marta Figueras-Dotti (1982) and Catherine Lacoste (1980).

The Samsung World Championship, a 72-hole stroke play event, has been contested on five continents in 23 years. Twenty of the top women players in the world will compete at BIGHORN Golf Club for a purse of $825,000 with a first prize of $206,000. The first two rounds will air on national sports cable with the final two rounds airing on NBC.

Past champions of the Samsung World Championship: Beth Daniel (1980, ’81 and ’94); JoAnne Carner (1982, ’83); Nancy Lopez (1984); Amy Alcott (1985); Pat Bradley (1986); Ayako Okamoto (1987); Rosie Jones (1988); Betsy King (1989); Cathy Gerring (1990); Meg Mallon (1991); Dottie Pepper (1993); Se Ri Pak (1999); Juli Inkster (1997, ’98 and 2000); Dorothy Delasin (2001); and Annika Sorenstam (1995, ’96 and 2002).