LPGA

• LPGA announces 2009 schedule

  
  

  West Palm Beach, FL (Sports Network) - The 2009 LPGA Tour schedule was released by tour commissioner Carolyn F.

  Bivens on Wednesday and there is plenty of change coming next year.

  The tour released the dates of 31 official events, down from 34 in 2008, and the Solheim Cup. Several unofficial events will have their dates released at a later time. Players will compete for nearly $55 million in official money in '09.

  The season again begins in Hawaii with the SBS Open at Turtle Bay, which starts February 12.

  The first change on the schedule is that the second Hawaii event to open the season, the Fields Open, is off the docket.

  In all, there are three events that won't return in 2009 and the Ginn company will only sponsor one event as opposed to two in '08. Also off the schedule are the SemGroup Championship and the ADT Championship.

  Two weeks after the SBS Open, the tour heads to Asia for two events. First up is the Honda LPGA Thailand. That event was on the 2007 schedule, but was not played in 2008.

  The following week is the HSBC Champions, which again will take place in Singapore.

  The tour returns to North America, but stops in Mexico for the MasterCard Classic before returning to the Unites States with the Phoenix LPGA International.

  That event was sponsored for the last several years by Safeway, but they will only run the event in Portland in 2009.

  The season's first major, the Kraft Nabisco Championship, will take place April 2-5. Women's world No. 1 Lorena Ochoa will defend her title at Mission Hills.

  The next two events, the Ginn Open and the Corona Championship, exchanged slots on the calendar and there is a week off between the Kraft Nabisco and the Ginn in '09.

  The first East Coast swing starts May 7 with the Michelob ULTRA Open at Kingsmill.

  After heading to Clifton, New Jersey and Corning, New York, the tour shifts to Illinois for the LPGA State Farm Classic, which will be played six weeks earlier than in 2007.

  That will be followed by the McDonald's LPGA Championship, the season's second major. Yani Tseng won that crown in 2008.

  After a week off, the tour returns to New York for the Wegmans LPGA, which will be contested three weeks earlier than this year. The Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic follows and will be played a week earlier than 2008.

  The U.S. Women's Open is slated for July 9-12, two weeks later than this year. Inbee Park will defend her title on The Old Course at Saucon Valley in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

  Following a two-week break, the tour heads to Europe for the Evian Masters and the Women's British Open. Ji-Yai Shin will defend her Women's British Open crown at Royal Lytham & St. Annes.

  Two weeks later, 12 of the top American golfers will face 12 of Europe's best in the Solheim Cup at Rich Harvest Farms in Illinois.

  The following seven events are all in different places on the schedule. The week after the Solheim Cup is the Safeway Classic, which is a week later than this year.

  The Canadian Women's Open follows the Safeway and is being contested three weeks later than in '08.

  The tour heads to Arkansas for the P&G Beauty NW Arkansas Championship, which was pushed back two months from '08.

  The Samsung World Championship and Longs Drugs Challenge were both pushed up two weeks from this year, while the Navistar LPGA Classic will be played a week later than this year in Alabama.

  The tour remains in Alabama for a second straight week with the Bell Micro LPGA Classic, which will be contested a month later than in '08.

  A week later, the tour moves back to Hawaii for the Kapalua Classic before heading to Asia for three more events.

  The final two events will be the Lorena Ochoa Invitational and the Stanford Financial Tour Championship.

  Stanford Financial, which sponsored the Stanford International Pro-Am the last few years, takes over as sponsor of the Tour Championship. That event shifts from Florida to Houston, Texas.

  11/19 12:41:51 ET