Five ways the Chevron Championship was different - not better - than in the desert
The Chevron Championship was played outside of the Coachella Valley last weekend, proving that at least some version of the LPGA major championship will play on even after leaving its Mission Hills Country Club home in Rancho Mirage after 51 years.
The tournament and the LPGA tried to keep the connections strong between the tournament played in Houston and the desert tournament, but it was impossible not to compare some aspects of the two events. The Houston tournament feels like a new tournament, even with the major designation. But what were the main differences in the two tournaments?
Well, here are a few differences:
Money matters
No, we aren‘t talking about the money in the purse, because we all know that a big purse doesn’t equate to a major championship. But over the last few years in the desert the LPGA major didn’t feel as much like a major with two years of no galleries and a sponsor who wasn’t able to spend money as freely as Chevron. After all, All-Nippon Airways was an international airline in the middle of a pandemic. Last week, in addition to the money to put the event on network television, there were little perks like Bentley cars used to escort past champions to the champion’s dinner, or a $1 million charity donation for a hole in one. It all adds up to a atmosphere that just felt a little bit more like a major than the desert event of the last three years.
The weather
Yes, the first two days of the tournament outside of Houston had weather issues, specifically rain that included two inches overnight that delayed Friday’s second round. But before we get too smug in the desert, remember there were more than a few days of high winds in the desert that hit Mission Hills Country Club and even a few days of downed eucalyptus trees. That being said, rain was never truly part of the equation in the desert, and it might be part of the story more often in Houston.
More: Palm Desert's Charlie Reiter earns full exemption to PGA Tour Canada
The gallery
One of the biggest problems in the desert for the tournament was a dwindling gallery, not including the two years of no galleries because of COVID-19 restrictions. The tournament struggled to fill grandstands even when the grandstands were downsized. The first two days in Houston had small crowds, but that might have been the weather. There were reports on the weekend of 45-minute waits to get into a shuttle to the golf course. The LPGA is never going to have the same galleries as the PGA Tour, but the Houston tournament seems to have done better over the weekend than the desert event.
The player connections
No past champions at Mission Hills won the inaugural Houston event. That is unless you count the junior tournaments connected with the Mission Hills event. Both Lilia Vu, the playoff winner Sunday, and Angel Yin, who lost in the playoff to Vu, won the junior tournament at Mission Hills that allowed one junior golfer to play in the major championship. Vu won in 2012, and Yin won in 2013. So there was a little Mission Hills magic in Houston.
The jump
Okay, so we now know that the plan was for the winner to jump into the lake that fronts the 18th green at Carlton Oaks all along. Assuming the player went along with the plan. It certainly wasn’t the same kind of leap that the winner found at Poppie’s Pond, as Vu ran onto a manufactured dock and jumped with her back to the grandstands. Then again, the leap at Mission Hills had become quite ceremonial as well over the last two decades. The main difference seemed to be that while the leap into Poppie’s Pond was a jump into filtered water in a cement pool separated from the lake itself, the jump in Houston was into the actual lake with its green-brown water. We’ll see if that leap is a little cleaner next year.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Chevron Championship: Houston tournament showcased changes from Palm Springs-area event
