It seems a bit ironic that this week, three players with strong Colorado connections will compete in their first LPGA event as Tour members, yet no matter how well they do, they won’t win any prize money.
It’s just a matter of timing, but the LPGA Tour’s first domestic tournament this year — the RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup, which starts Friday in Phoenix — will be a radical departure from the Tour’s norm of divvying up the purse among those who make the cut.
Instead, the entire $1 million purse will be donated to charity, with $500,000 going to the LPGA Foundation and the LPGA-USGA Girls Golf program, and the other half-million going to charities designated by the top 10 finishers.
But while there won’t be any paycheck this week, it’s still a very big event for part-time Denver resident Alison Whitaker (pictured above) and former University of Denver golfers Stephanie Sherlock and Kimberly Kim. All three qualified for the LPGA Tour as rookie pros last fall, and they’ll make their first start of the season at the Founders Cup. They’ll be joined in the field by Jill McGill, a Colorado Golf Hall of Famer who has won more than $2.3 million in 15 seasons on Tour.
While McGill is a Tour veteran, Whitaker, Sherlock and Kim were all amateurs a year ago. Sherlock (pictured at left) was wrapping up a DU career which included seven individual college titles. Kim, the winner of the 2006 U.S. Women’s Amateur as a 14-year-old, was playing what would be her one and only season at DU as she turned pro shortly after the school year concluded. And in 2010, Whitaker was winning her second CWGA Match Play title and was low amateur in her second consecutive HealthOne Colorado Women’s Open.
And now all three are on the top women’s tour in the world. Sherlock and Kim gained their LPGA cards by tying for 14th in the finals of Tour qualifying in December, and Whitaker earned slightly-less-desirable status by placing 22nd.
Even last summer, Whitaker was dreaming of competing on the LPGA Tour.
“I believe that’s where I should be,” the native of Australia said last August. “I like to think the Tour could use someone like me to shake it up a little bit. I just love golf and I’ve got a big appreciation for the game. I’m looking forward to going do it.”
Whitaker, Kim and Sherlock have all competed in LPGA Tour events as amateurs, but this is different.
Sherlock, for one, played the Founders Cup course a couple of weeks ago after spending the winter in Orlando, Fla., where she lives in an RV owned by her Canadian-based family.
“The (Wildfire at Desert Ridge) course is really nice. I can’t wait to get back out there,” Sherlock wrote in a recent blog. “I am really looking forward to starting my LPGA season.”
While Kim (pictured at left) has won the U.S. Women’s Amateur, Sherlock (2010) and Whitaker (2005) have both been semifinalists in that event. Kim has also been runner-up in three other USGA championships, the 2006 and 2009 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links and the 2009 U.S. Girls’ Junior. And she was the medalist in the 2010 U.S. Women’s Open qualifying at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.
“I feel really lucky to play golf as a career,” Kim said recently. “Having a real job would be hard.”
By the way, though competitors won’t receive any prize money in the LPGA Founders Cup this week, the amount they would have earned will appear on the official Tour money list.
