LPGA Brings Teaching and Club Professional Championship To Charlotte
The LPGA Teaching and Club Professionals (T&CP) will bring the 23rd annual LPGA T&CP National Championship to North Carolina. The 54-hole, stroke-play tournament will be staged at The Golf Club at Ballantyne in Charlotte, Sept. 13-15.
The annual T&CP National Championship will bring together 144 teaching and club professionals from throughout the nation and internationally, with the winner earning an exemption into the 2011 LPGA Championship.
LPGA Tour veteran and Duke University graduate Jean Bartholomew of Garden City, N.Y., will return to defend her 2009 Championship title. Bartholomew is a teaching professional at The Creek Club in Locust Valley, N.Y.
“On behalf of the LPGA Teaching and Club Professional members, we are pleased to partner with the Golf Club at Ballantyne for the LPGA T&CP National Championship,” said Dana Rader, the organization’s national president. “Ballantyne is home to Dana Rader Golf Schools, and I am honored to bring this year’s championship to Charlotte.”
A number of North Carolina T&CP members will compete in the national championship, including: former University of North Carolina head women’s golf coach Sally Austin of Chapel Hill; Anne Marie Goslak of Winston-Salem; Charlaine Hirst of Pinehurst; former LPGA Tour member Cathy Johnston-Forbes of Kitty Hawk; Victoria Kuehner of Wilmington; Karen Palacios-Jansen of Mooresville; Bobbi Salmon of Tryon; and Fran Wilkerson of Raleigh.
Notable players in the field of this year’s event include: LPGA Tour tournament winner Charlotta Sorenstam of Orlando, Fla. (sister of LPGA Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam); former LPGA Tour members Dede Cusimano of Basalt, Colo., Lisa DePaulo of Austin, Texas, Sue Ginter of Ridgefield, Conn., and the LPGA Tour’s first player from France, Anne-Marie Palli of Scottsdale, Ariz.
Other past T&CP National Championship winners in the field include: 2008 champion Laura Shanahan Rowe of Hampton, N.H.; 2007 winner Lisa DePaulo of Texas; and 2004 winner Cindy Miller of Silver Creek, N.Y. Miller was a contestant in the Golf Channel’s first all-female cast of the “Big Break” show.
Prior to the tournament rounds, the LPGA VIP Golf Clinic hosted by Nike Golf will be held from 3-4:30 p.m., on Saturday, Sept. 11, at The Golf Club at Ballantyne. The event will feature a special appearance by LPGA and World Golf Hall of Fame member Nancy Lopez, and will highlight instruction by Dana Rader, Charlotte-based LPGA professional Julie Cole, LPGA professionals Cindy Miller and Debbie O’Connell, and 2008 National Teacher of the Year, Karen Palacios-Jansen.
The clinic is open to the public. Cost to register is $95 per person and includes an invitation to the LPGA Rolex Reception at Ballantyne Resort on Saturday from 6-9 p.m. Deadline for clinic registration is Monday, Aug. 30th. Call 386-274-6293 for clinic details.
In addition, the LPGA Teaching and Club Professionals will present honorary T&CP memberships at the LPGA Rolex Reception to: Nancy Lopez, for her career contributions to golf; Cindy Davis, who was the T&CP’s first executive director and is currently president of Nike Golf; and to Barrie Oringer, the former marketing director of Golf For Women magazine, which sponsored the T&CP National Championship for 14 years.
For more information about the LPGA Teaching and Club Professionals National Championship, the LPGA VIP Golf Clinic, or presentation of the honorary memberships, contact the LPGA T&CP’s national tournament director Ashleigh Anderson at Ashleigh.anderson@lpga.comand at 386-274-6231.
For on-site media credentials or inquiries, contact Lisa D. Mickey at 386-214-9726 and at lisa.mickey@lpga.com .