LPGA to La Costa?

Sports Business Daily is reporting that the new LPGA event in Los Angeles in 2010 will actually wind up in north San Diego County, at the La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, once the site of the PGA Tour's annual Mercedes Championship and later the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.

Is the LPGA sure it wants to be doing this? Apathy was always an issue when the men played at La Costa, even with Tiger Woods in the field -- hence the the Mercedes Championship wound up on Maui and the Match Play Championship moved to Arizona. Why would anyone believe the LPGA would deliver a different result there?

The LPGA Classic presented by J Golf, as the tournament apparently will be known, ought to have stuck to its original plan, to play in the greater Los Angeles area, where the enormous Asian population might have been a boon for a tour laden with Asian stars.

On the bright side, a new event played anywhere is a welcome development for the LPGA (or any other tour, for that matter).

-- John Strege