LPGA commissioner Mike Whan said that he is working on three scenarios for a possible return to competition, knowing that any firm timetable depends on global success in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whan, in comments to the No Laying Up podcast posted on the LPGA Web site on Thursday, said that it has been “a busy, stressful time” trying to juggle options for the first LPGA event since Feb. 16 in Australia.
“Just like any other tour you talk to, we’ve got three scenarios — a scenario that says we start playing in the next month, a scenario that says we don’t start playing until mid-July, a scenario that says we don’t start playing until mid-September,” Whan said.
Photo: AFP
“Each one of those scenarios has a schedule with it. Each one of those schedules has economic repercussions that we have to deal with. Each one of those schedules have regulation adjustments and changes that we have to think through,” he added.
The next scheduled LPGA event is on May 14 to 17 at Belleair, Florida, with events set for the following weeks in Williamsburg, Virginia, and Galloway, New Jersey, ahead of the US Women’s Open on June 4 to 7 in Houston, Texas.
Mid-July offers the Great Lakes Bay Invitational, a pairs event on July 15 to 18 at Midland, Michigan, and no other events before four European stops in August.
The year’s first scheduled major LPGA event, the ANA Inspiration, was moved to Sept. 10 to 13, with October and early November set for events in Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan.
“I’m usually spending my time working on a season two or three years from now,” Whan said. “Now I’m working on the season two and three months from now.”
“To be spending virtually every minute of every day working with different sponsors and different tournaments — how to get them in a date [this year] that works, and we obviously have more events than dates — it has been a busy, stressful time,” he added.
After two January events in Florida and two February stops in Australia, Whan canceled events in Thailand, Singapore and China. Five more events planned for last year to early May are now listed as postponed.
“We were COVID before most of this side of the world had heard of COVID,” Whan said. “Late January, we started talking to our tournaments in Thailand, China and Singapore.”
“Back then, and it feels like three years ago now, we probably canceled those more out of what we didn’t know. There was this new virus. There were a lot of countries having different reactions to it. We were not sure how widespread it was going to be,” he said.
“If you jump forward to the last cancelations, that was definitely based on what we did know,” he added.
A major issue was going to be the possibility of 14 to 21 days in quarantine if anyone at an event tested positive, Whan said.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite