The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA):
The LPGA, in full the Ladies Professional Golf Association, is an American organization for female professional golfers. The organization, with headquarters in Daytona Beach, Florida, is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekly golf tournaments for elite female golfers from around the world which runs from February to December each year. In 2007 prize money on the LPGA Tour will be US$54.285 million.
Other "LPGA"s exist in other countries, each with a geographical designation in its name, but the U.S. organization is the largest and best known. The LPGA is also an organization for female club and teaching golf professionals. This is different from the PGA Tour which runs the main professional tours in the U.S. and, since 1968, has been independent of the club and teaching professionals' organization, the PGA of America.
The LPGA was founded in 1950 by a group of 13 women, including Babe Didrikson Zaharias. It is now the oldest ongoing women's professional sports organization in the United States. Carolyn Bivens is the current LPGA Commissioner.
On June 7, 2005, then-LPGA commissioner Ty Votaw, announced that the LPGA would have a playoff system beginning in 2006. The playoff system is a points system in which the top 30 points scorers and two wild cards compete for a $1 million first-place prize at the LPGA Playoffs at The ADT in Florida in November. Major winners automatically qualify, as do winners of other selected events.
International Diversity in the LPGA:
In its early decades the LPGA Tour was dominated by American players. Vivien Saunders of the United Kingdom became the first player living outside the United States to gain an LPGA tour card in 1969. The non-U.S. contingent is now very large, and generally has the upper hand on the course. The last time an American player topped the money list was in 1993, the last time an American led the tour in tournaments won was in 1996, and from 2000 through 2006 non-Americans won 22 out of 28 major championships. In 2006 the largest international contingents were 32 South Koreans, 14 Swedes, 11 Australians, 9 Britons (4 English, 4 Scottish, 1 Welsh), 6 Canadians and 4 Japanese.