Senior LPGA Championship making big impact on Dubois County
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(IIB Photo/Jake Langdon)
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(IIB Photo/Jake Langdon)
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(IIB Photo/Jake Langdon)
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The River Centre will host a series of concerts the week of the event. (IIB Photo/Jake Langdon)
The Legends of the LPGA is heading to Jasper for the first time ever this week for the Senior LPGA Championship at Sultan’s Run Golf Club. The tournament is projected to bring more than 7,000 people to Dubois County, with an economic impact estimated to be more than $1 million.
The tournament takes place Thursday through Saturday, with 74 women competing for a purse of $400,000 and a winner’s share of $60,000 in a 54-hole stroke-play format, with no cut.
Two-time LPGA Tour Player of the Year and 2022 Senior LPGA Championship winner Karrie Webb returns to defend her title after winning last year over Annika Sörenstam. The win marked Webb’s first on the Legends of the LPGA.
Other notable players in the field include Laura Diaz, Trish Johnson, Juli Inkster, Hollis Stacy, Liselotte Neumann and Angela Stanford.
The event came to be in Jasper through a relationship between Sultan’s Run and The Pete Dye Course at French Lick, said LPGA Epson Tour Vice Presidenet Tim Kramer. French Lick previously hosted an Epson Tour, the developmental golf tour of the LPGA Tour, as well as the first four Senior LPGA Championships from 2017 to 2021.
“Our events are more successful in smaller communities. It gives people the opportunity to rally around something that’s pretty unique,” Kramer said. “Not a lot of communities get to host a women’s professional golf tournament.”
The choice to host the tournament at Sultan’s Run came later than usual for tournaments of this caliber. The LPGA previewed the course in October of 2022 and finalized the deal in January of 2023.
“A lot of tournaments have a full 12 months to plan. And, you know, we’ve been on kind of that six to eight month timeframe,” said Chris Tretter, co-owner and general manager at Sultan’s Run Golf Club, who is also serving as tournament director.
Tretter said that preparations for the tournament include both on-course and off-course accommodations, including setting up hotel rooms for the players, providing food, refreshments, transportation and restroom availability to patrons as well as getting volunteers, police and medical personnel on site among many other commitments.
“Everybody supporting what’s going on in this community is what makes this community beautiful,” said Tretter.
Tretter notes the value that an event like this can do for Sultan’s Run and the county in the long term as golf is a major tourism driver and a $2 billion industry in the Hoosier state.
Tretter feels that Sultan’s Run is a bigger destination than ever before.
“People who play golf like to play at very nice places, and something that characterizes a nice facility is the ability to host a tournament of this caliber,” he said. “So we will be branding the course as a host site of the 2023 Senior LPGA Championship for the next five to six years, and that will continue to draw hospitality to our region.”
Visit Dubois County Executive Director Whitney Hall Lubbers shared a similar sentiment, saying, “It will put Sultan’s Run on the bucket list of a lot of different golfers and open it up to a larger array of people that want to come to our area. So we do see it as a huge investment not only for this week, that’s going to bring all those visitors at one time, but it is going to also bring visitors for the next five years.”
Tournaments in smaller communities require a greater portion of the city’s population to step up and help, whether monetarily or through volunteering. Lubbers says that the city has never seen an event of this magnitude in its existence.
“There’s a lot of sponsors that stepped up because the cost of holding this tournament is huge,” said Lubbers. “I think we’re all just ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work in any way we can to make this a great experience for Sultan’s Run, for our county, for our region and as well as for our visitors and make sure they have a really great experience that they think of us again.”
One local business looking to capitalize on the opportunity is the Jasper River Centre, as it is hosting two concerts open to the public on Friday and Saturday. The River Centre is a residential and commercial properties building with event space that opened in 2020 and sits adjacent to Jasper’s Fairfield Inn and Suites.
“I immediately thought, this is an opportunity. We have the venues, so we could provide entertainment during this time. This is our opportunity to showcase River Centre as well.” said Denise Izzolena, River Centre event sales manager and public relations.
Friday’s concert is on River Centre’s rooftop venue called High Pointe with country singer Adam Gregory, and Saturday’s concert is at the Courtyard tent with rock band First & Main. The event is 21+ and tickets can be purchased upon arrival or by clicking here.
Visitors can also try out River Centre’s bar, Owsley’s Lounge, St. Benedict’s Brew Works and brunch spot Cafe Piña.
“While we anticipate a lot of traffic to the area, we want to make sure that those guests to the area get a great taste of Jasper and what we offer” Izzolena said.
Kramer mentioned that the LPGA evaluates the entire community as well as the course itself when choosing a destination for their tournaments.
“All indications are that the Jasper community, the corporate community and the golf community have been extremely supportive of the event coming into town,” said Kramer. “We’re excited about this week, and also excited about growing the event, and hopefully making Jasper a community that hosts the Senior LPGA Championship in the future.”
Tretter finds that Dubois County, and the course itself, is capable of hosting tournaments with crowd sizes similar to the senior LPGA, including the Epson Tour and the developmental tour for the U.S.-based PGA Tour called the Korn Ferry Tour, but feels confident in the city’s ability to step up for those events in the future.
One-day tickets are $15 and a 3-day ticket package is available for $40. You can purchase tickets online by clicking here, and the event will be livestreamed on the Legends of the LPGA website.