PLAYERS TO WATCH
NATALIE GULBIS: Gulbis received a
sponsor’s exemption into the tournament.
She’s reduced her schedule due to back
surgery and her TV show “18 Holes with
Natalie Gulbis and Jimmy Hanlin,” which
featured Kingsmill.
LEXI THOMPSON: After sky-diving into
Kingsmill’s pro-am with Navy SEALS last
year for an advertising stunt, Thompson
blitzed the field by five strokes to claim
the title. With four consecutive top-10s
on the River Course, she appears poised
to become the tournament’s first back-
to-back champion.
LYDIA KO: The 21-year-old former
world No. 1 has two top-10 finishes in
four visits to Kingsmill, but she’s never
shot four sub-70 rounds in one week. A
Sunday round of 73 dropped her out of
contention to T-10 last year.
IN GEE CHUN: Both the 23-year-old
South Korean’s career victories are
majors. She was 10th at Kingsmill in
2016, and her 15-under 269 in ’17 would
have won the event most years but for
Thompson’s record-setting week.
LAUREN COUGHLIN: The LPGA rookie
from Chesapeake and the University
of Virginia earned her card by finishing
seventh over five rounds at Q School last
December. She is one of eight rookies on
tour this year.
Lexi Thompson removes her sky-diving suit after a dramatic entrance at the Kingsmill pro-am last year.
“And because Kingsmill has been running
tournaments for decades, they do it right.
As a commissioner, I don’t stress as much
over security, the knowledge of volunteers
or how comfortable the players will be. It’s
just a great place to spend a week.”
Escalante has deep experience oper-
ating high-profile tournaments as well.
Host of the PGA Tour’s Houston Open—
Shell dropped its sponsorship this year—
Escalante ran the World Golf Champion-
ships Accenture Match Play at its Dove
Mountain property in Arizona. In addi-
tion to Kingsmill and Houston this year,
Escalante in August will put on the Web.
com tour’s WinCo Foods Portland Open
at Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon.
The company will have the financial
help of Geico in Williamsburg. The King-
smill Championship lacks a title spon-
sor, but the insurance giant has replaced
South Korean cable network JTBC as
presenting sponsor.
Schulze sees that as another promising
operations piece falling nicely into place.
Ticket sales were already double 2017’s
pace at the same point in January, he says,
vsga.org
the pro-am was sold out and sponsorships
had matched last year’s total.
“Everything is so far ahead of where it’s
been in the past, and we have no explana-
tion for it,” Schulze says. “I will say our
team retains partners very well. We pride
ourselves on delivering what we promise,
a great experience.”
While Kingsmill’s purse will increase
to $1.4 million in 2019 and 2020—16 of 34
LPGA events pay out at least $2 million
this year—Whan and Matheson say they’d
like to bring its money more in line with
the strength of its field.
A slight calendar relocation also is in
line next year, Schulze says. Because the
men’s PGA Championship is moving from
August into Kingsmill’s window in May,
Schulze says the LPGA will move Kingsmill
a week forward or back to avoid a conflict.
If that bumps Kingsmill into Memorial
Day weekend, Schulze says he could see
the tournament adopting a Monday finish.
But that’s something for all parties to
discuss later, now that it’s been guaranteed
there will be a Kingsmill tournament to
discuss in the first place.
Lauren Coughlin is a rookie
with winning potential.
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