Four of the world’s major women’s golf tours have launched a brand new team competition called The Queens presented by Kowa, which will take place on December 4-6, 2015, at Miyoshi Country Club, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
Four teams of nine players from the Australian Ladies Professional Golf (ALPG), Korean Ladies Professional Golf Association (KLPGA), Ladies European Tour (LET) and the Ladies’ Professional Golfers’ Association of Japan (JLPGA) will compete in the three day tournament with a total purse of 100 million yen (approximately 739,000 euros).
“In sport, there is nothing better than getting behind your team,” said the Ladies European Tour’s CEO Ivan Khodabakhsh. “On the LET, we celebrate the individual achievements of our players, who represent 40 different countries, week in, week out, but we are thrilled to be launching this innovative, first-its kind competition where fans around the globe will really be able to get behind the players from their home country and tour.
Qualification for the Ladies European Tour team is open to LET Members from Europe, the Middle East and Asia (EMEA) and the team of nine, to be announced in October. Players from Australia and New Zealand will be eligible for the ALPG team, with Korean and Japanese players respectively representing the KLPGA and JLPGA.
Final format to be confirmed
The final format is still to be confirmed, but the three days’ play will consist of a mixture of foursomes and four ball match-play and individual stroke play competition.
The challenging West Course at Miyoshi Country Club will be a fitting venue as it has previously hosted several championships, including the Munsingwear Ladies Tokai Classic, Tokai Ladies Classic and Japan Women’s Open in 1998.
At a press conference in Tokyo, JLPGA Chairman Hiromi Kobayashi said (through translation): “Having 36 top players from four of the world’s major tours competing in a team competition in Japan for the first time has really excited sports fans and we are really looking forward to this dream tournament which is certain to be extremely competitive.”
The Queens presented by Kowa is one of several edgy concepts recently developed by the Ladies European Tour. These include broadcasting premium events for free live on YouTube and testing a Wednesday final round in Turkey in order to avoid the over saturated weekend sports television schedules thereby generating more media exposure for women’s sport worldwide.
