The LPGA Tour will return to Hong Kong next spring for the first time in 50 years.
The tour said on the 27th, Korea time, that it will stage the Futu Ladies World Championship, with a purse of $3.4 million, for four days from March 4 next year at the Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club in Hong Kong. The event is being organized with SMK, an Asian sports and entertainment company, and Moomoo, a global investment and trading platform.
The tournament, which will feature a 78-player field, follows stops in Thailand (Honda LPGA Thailand) and Singapore (HSBC Women's World Championship) and will replace the Blue Bay LPGA, held in China since 2014. Lee Mi-hyang won last year's Blue Bay event.
It marks the first LPGA Tour event in Hong Kong since 1976. The $3.4 million purse is the largest for any women's golf tournament held in Asia. Clearwater Bay, which opened in 1982, sits atop a cliff overlooking the South China Sea.
LPGA Tour Commissioner Craig Kessler said in a news release that fans in Asia have always been among the most passionate in the world and that holding a tournament in such a strong market is highly important to the tour. He added that the tour could not be happier to be heading to Hong Kong.
