Golf World - January 16, 2012

LPGA jumps from 23
to 27 events in 2012

�� Early last year, commissioner Mike Whan said the LPGA needed to host 30 tournaments to make the tour’s business model work. When he added that he wanted to get to that number in 2013, it seemed to be a remote goal, with only 23 events on tap in 2011. Now it is well within reach after the 2012 schedule, released Jan. 10, included 27 tournaments.

Coming aboard are the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open, the LPGA Lotte Championship (marking the tour’s return to Hawaii) and the Manulife Financial LPGA Classic in Waterloo, Ontario. The Jamie Farr Toledo Classic comes back after a one-year hiatus, and the tour returns to one of the players’ favorite courses for the Kingsmill Championship at Virginia’s Kingsmill Resort. After 35

years on the schedule, the State Farm
Classic will not return in 2012.

“At the end of last year, I felt like I
was hitting a lot of good iron shots,
but the putts weren’t going in,”
Whan said, referring to encouraging
business talks that failed to produce
tournaments. “Now the putts are
dropping.”
The season kicks off Feb. 9-12 in
Australia and concludes Nov. 15-18
at the CME Group Titleholders in
Naples, Fla. Last year, there were
two stretches with three consecutive
weeks without a tournament. This
year, there is no down period longer
than two weeks.

Asked if his goal of 30 events in 2013 is possible, Whan said: “I sure hope it’s doable. It feels that if we don’t get there, I’m underperform-ing.” There will be 15 LPGA events in the United States this year, up from 13 in 2011. —Ron Sirak

pga tour

Laird looks homeward
in hopes of Ryder berth

�� Martin Laird believes more than
a dozen players have a legitimate
chance to qualify for this year’s Euro-
pean Ryder Cup team.

“It is a stacked team all the way
down about 20 guys,” Laird, a native
of Glasgow, Scotland, said at Kapalua
Resort prior to the season-opening
Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
“You look at the list and you can’t say
there’s isn’t a guy who doesn’t deserve
to be on that team. It’s as hard to make
that team as it has ever been.”
This might sound like an opening
salvo in the verbal sparring certain
to ensue in the months leading up to
the 39th Ryder Cup in September at
Medinah CC near Chicago, but Laird
was merely assessing his chances of
making the team that has won six of
the last eight matches.

Based in Scottsdale, Laird has never competed in the biennial event, but he has taken up an affiliate membership on the European Tour this year. He is planning a summer schedule abroad, intent on cracking the roster.

“I haven’t decided quite yet how
many tournaments, but I’m going to
go back and try to show José Maria
[Olazábal, the European captain] and
the other guys that I’m not just hang-
ing out here in America expecting a
pick or hoping for one,” Laird said. “I
know I have to earn it, and I want to
show that I want to be on that team
and that I’m good enough, if not to earn
it on points, then to warrant a pick.”
European Tour members can
qualify for the Ryder Cup team via
the money list or a world points list,
and Laird, 29, got his first chance to
earn points last week at the Hyundai
T of C, where his second-place finish
was worth 22. 8 World Ranking points.