The
Wire presents a special Monday In Their Own Words feature. As the
LPGA Tour's first major of the season, the Kraft Nabisco Championship,
got underway last week, Tour Commissioner Ty Votaw delivered his
state of the tour address.
TY VOTAW: Thank
you all for being here this afternoon. As you know, for many years,
the Kraft Nabisco Championship, our first major of the year, golf's
first major championship, is representing one of the LPGA Tour's
most exciting weeks. This year is no exception to that.
While all of us
are eager to see what's going to transpire this week and whether
Annika can become the first player since Patty Berg in 50-plus years
to three-peat at a major championship, our excitement is certainly
tempered by the events that have surrounded us the last few weeks
in Iraq, and that has put the past few days in all of sports in perspective.
But on behalf of
the entire staff of the LPGA, our entire association, including the
players, I want to personally thank Kraft Nabisco for its continued
and significant support of not only the LPGA and all of its players,
but what this event has meant to the world of golf.
I'd also like to
extend my thanks and appreciation to Tournament Director Terry Wilcox
and his entire staff. As many of you know, Terry is one of the LPGA's
greatest friends, and he and his staff each and every year make this
event one of best stops on the LPGA Tour. So, our thanks go out to
Terry and his staff for making the LPGA and our players feel so welcome
this week, as they always do.
There are a number
of things I'd like to share with you. One is I'd like to give you
all a sense of how the LPGA is performing one year into our new five-year
business plan. Secondly, I'd like to preview the competition on the
2003 LPGA Tour schedule. Thirdly, I'd like to focus on Annika Sorenstam,
and what she is doing for women's professional golf because I know
that has been a focus of many of you over the past several months,
and lastly, I'd like to share some news as it relates to the LPGA
and our sponsorship base going into 2003.
With respect to
our five-year business plan, a one-year report card, if you will,
it's hard to believe but almost a year ago to the day, I stood before
most of you at this event just days after completing the LPGA's first-ever
Player Summit, and the Player Summit, as you all wrote about and
experienced throughout this past year, was unquestionably a defining
moment for the LPGA. That's because it resulted in the LPGA and all
of us in the organization taking a very hard look at ourselves and,
more importantly, fundamentally changing the way we conduct business
going forward.
The Player Summit
created what we call the road map for the start of the LPGA's next
50 years as a leading sports entertainment property. It was at last
year's Summit that we unveiled our five-year strategic business plan,
and ever since that time the LPGA has been injected with a renewed
sense of positive energy that has reinvigorated our entire organization.
Perhaps even more importantly, our new plan is producing qualitative,
as well as quantifiable, measurable business results that bode extremely
well for our organization and most especially for our players, our
sponsors and our advertisers.
Click
here for the complete transcript of Ty Votaw's State of the LPGA
Tour address.
