NO. 16 AT KINSMILL RESORT'S RIVER COURSE: KINSMILL RESORT; PARK AND PETTERSEN: JOHN MUMMERT/USGA PHOTO ARCHIVES;
CREAMER: RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH PHOTO ARCHIVES
players in the world show up? And No. 2:
Do those players say good things about it
once they arrive? When you’re talking about
Kingsmill, you check ‘Yes’ and ‘Yes.’ ”
If you’re a competitor, you check
‘Yes’ with a big, bold and indelible
marker. Few individuals are more
outspoken in their praise of the
Kingsmill experience than Cristie
Kerr, the event’s only three-time
champion. Kerr won the second of her
Kingsmill titles at the 2009 Michelob
Ultra Open. Speculation was rampant
at the time that the championship
soon would become a casualty of the
acquisition of Anheuser-Busch, then
the resort’s owner, by international
brewing conglomerate InBev.
Four months later, speculation
coalesced into fact. Kerr addressed the
issue within minutes after holing her
final putt in 2009. The demise of the
Michelob Ultra Open, she said, would
be “a monumental loss for the LPGA.”
She then looked defiantly into the future.
“I’ll bring a sponsor myself if I have to,”
Kerr added.
She didn’t have to. The current chapter
of Kingsmill’s long relationship with
professional golf began in 2010, when the
venue was purchased by Xanterra Parks and
Resorts. The LPGA returned in 2012.
“You know, when you walk around and
see the crowds, you really understand that
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The second shot at the demanding par-4
16th offers a panoramic view of the James
River and is a hole that has helped to
decide the outcome in years past.
people love their golf here,” Kerr says. “They
love the LPGA and we’re just so happy to be
here. I love this place; that’s no secret.”
T veteran Brittany Lincicome says the
our
Kingsmill Championship is built upon a
philosophical foundation identical to the one
that served the Michelob Ultra Open so long
and so well. Organizers and volunteers “just
seem to go above and beyond the call of duty
every year,” she says. “They go overboard
every year to make us happy. That’s what
keeps bringing the top players back. It’s a
tournament that I never want to miss.”
POPULAR PAIRING
The event
annually attracts
a strong field and
includes former winner
Suzann Pettersen (top), past
runner-up Paula Creamer (above)
and Inbee Park (right), the reigning
Rolex Player of the Year.
Nor does anyone else, apparently. The
Michelob Ultra Open’s $2.2 million purse
was one of the tour’s most attractive.
The Kingsmill Championship’s purse is
considerably smaller: $1.3
million. Even so, 48 of
the tour’s top 50 money
winners enlisted to play
in last year’s event.
Why? That’s easy. LPGA
players are smitten with
two aspects of the Kingsmill
experience: the course on
which they play and the resort’s
penchant for making them feel
welcome, appreciated, special.
“It’s not a major [championship],”
says Wayne Nooe, Kingsmill’s
PGA vice president of sports and
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